Limited
by Anna Marie Raven
Summary: Musicalverse. If folks from our world can get to Oz, who's to say that Ozians can't make it over to our side? No self-inserts or Mary-Sues; all of your favourites are here. Chapter 28 is up, the reunion you've been waiting for. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

Limited

Summary:

Wicked Fic (musical-verse). Glinda's about ready to crack, setting off a chain of events that lead her to finally discoverate her friend's whereabouts.

Disclaimer:

I re-uploaded this chapter because I realize I never put in a disclaimer. Yeah. So, uh, I don't own anything, even though most of the characters are public domain, and I can legally use them, blah, blah, blah. The point is, I don't own them. Oh, and while I'm at it: any discrepancies, illogical moments, typos, and/or plot holes are the sole fault of magical intervention, so don't get all hissy with me. Take it up with the Wizard or something.

The sun rose as it did every other, normal, day. The people of the Emerald City awoke and went through their morning routines, but none of them went to their jobs. None went out to get groceries. Instead, nearly every man, woman, and child that dwelled in the City gathered in Town Square, in the shadow of the Emerald Palace.

And right at the chime of the Clock of the Time Dragon, the land's ruler, Glinda the Good, shuffled her way out onto her balcony.

She hated this damned day.

She appeared a little bedraggled, but to someone as naturally breath-taking as her, that only meant she looked somewhat radiant, instead of completely so. Still, she was far further up than any of those folks below her, awaiting her speech.

"Fellow Ozians," Glinda began, swallowing the lump in her throat. "Seven years ago today, Oz was freed from the tyranny of the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes, this is a day for celebrating, but so, in fact, is everyday. That said, his will be the last time we publicly celebrate the passing of the Wicked Witches."

The crowd collectively groaned.

"Now, now. We couldn't have celebrated this forever, you know. It isn't right to celebrate death, when the natural thing to do is mourn someone's passing."

A Munchkin farmer spoke up from the crowd, "No one mourns the Wicked!"

The crowd roared with laughter, cheers, and applause.

Glinda was not so amused.

"No one mourns the Wicked?" She bellowed, silencing the crowd; for no one had ever seen Glinda the Good in a foul mood, let alone this angry. "No one! I do! I mourn them every damned day! Every day that I have to speak out to you people, smiling through my teeth and waving mechanically!"

The crowd was silent, save for a few scattered gasps.

"Did any of you know them? Did any of you bear witness yourselves to one of the so-called heinous acts as it was being committed? I understand that the Witch of the Eas—Nessarose was a dictator in Munchkinland."

There were a few grunts of confirmation below her.

"Fine. But what of the Witch of the West? What did she do?"

A sickly woman screeched, "She helped out those rebel Animals!" And cheers backed up her outburst.

Glinda scoffed. "They were rebels only because they could speak. And, my dear woman, as far as I'm concerned, they have more of a right to speak their minds than you have to speak yours!"

The crowd was taken aback once again, staring at their beloved leader in silence. Then a young man dressed in emerald finery lurched back, before flinging a tomato up at the balcony.

It hit Glinda the Good squarely on the collarbone. She let out a shriek of outrage as the crowd laughed, and soon others joined in, throwing what they could, to show their disapproval of her defense of the Witches.

Horrified, both at the crowd of her people and the fact she had lashed out at them so suddenly, Glinda whirled around, practically diving back into her room, shutting the doors behind her. More produce, clumps of dirt, and even glass smashed against the closed doors.

Panting lightly, she pulled herself off of the floor, and promptly fell onto her bed. She forced herself to calm down, and was disgustified to find herself sweating slightly.

A knock at the door caused her to sit up with a petulant groan. So distressed was she that she wiped her face on her billowing skirt before opening the door, revealing one of the servants.

"A visitor for you, Lady Glinda," said the young woman airily.

Glinda blanched. "Are they carrying fruit?" she asked nervously.

Perplexed, the young woman shook her head, and Glinda gracefully stepped out of her chambers, closing the door behind her.

She took a few steps, then turned back to the serving girl. "In the foyer, then?"

At the girl's confirmation, Glinda went the rest of the way, wondering if any of her servants knew the cause of the racket outside.


	2. Chapter 2

Boq had long been used to Glinda not knowing who he was. He had accepted it, forced to, especially, when he had been turned to tin by the Wicked Witch, his former classmate Elphaba.

Since then, he had been revered by the people of Oz. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't enough to make him happy. Even after over seven years, still he longed for his humanity.

He had stayed in the Emerald City, visiting Glinda often, loving her silently, but remaining friends. She'd asked him what his real name was; surely it couldn't merely be Tin Man. But he had insisted that the one who'd "made" him hadn't given him anything else to be called by.

They were, in his mind, good friends. Glinda was always a tad tense around him, but he'd come to expect the reaction from everyone who'd seen him.

So he'd rushed into the palace when he heard her speech and saw the violence the people had responded with. Surely, she couldn't have valued the witch that much, so he'd thought to take it upon himself to talk some sense into her, and maybe even help her talk the crowd down.

_Speaking of Miss Glinda_, he thought, standing as she descended the main stairway.

"Good morning, Master Tin Man," she greeted, wearily. "How are you faring this fine day?"

Boq cleared his throat. "Usually, the anniversary of the Fall of the Witch," Glinda scowled at him for that, "_is_ a fine day, but I imagine not so much for yourself."

"Oh, Oz." Glinda shuffled over to the couch opposite him and plopped down, her skirt poofing up with air, blocking her face from view. "I suppose I have made a bit of a mess of things, haven't I?"

"I should say so," Boq stated, bearing no malice as he took his seat again. "I mean, Miss Glinda, the people won't stand any sort of Witch sympathizers. She was evil. Why-- why would you stand up for such a person?"

Glinda sighed. "Because…" She trailed off, not sure what to tell the Tin Man. He had been a good friend to her over the years, but she still resented him for being one of those responsible for Elphie's death. "I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable talking about it."

Boq's tin face creaked into a comforting smile. "Come, now, Miss Glinda. You can tell me, and I promise I will never echo your words to another soul." He knocked on his chest, amused at his little "echo" pun.

Glinda wasn't so amused. She was more despondent than anything.

She couldn't tell this fellow, could she? Hadn't Elphie made her promise never to clear her name? _Well_, she reasoned, _what she doesn't know won't hurt her, right? Ohhh, I just hope she doesn't haunt me for this…_

"You see," she began, "as many already know, the Witch-- her name was Elphaba-- and I went to Shiz University together. We were roommates. But, what many don't know is we… we were… we were friends."

Boq watched Glinda sniffle slightly, trying not to upset herself. He nodded, pretending to be interested, as if this was all new to him.

Glinda continued after dabbing at her eyes with the hem off her skirt, not caring about propriety. "She was granted an audience with the Wizard, but it turned out that he and Madame Morrible, the former headmistress at Shiz, were responsible for all of the anti-Animal sentiment. You remember."

"Yes, Miss Glinda."

"Well, Elphaba wouldn't have it, and she went against him, helping all of the Animals that she could." Glinda began to tear up again. "She wasn't evil! She was deemed Wicked! And killed! Just for being the only one to do the right thing!"

Boq watched Glinda's tears fall, not moving to console her. He was furious! Not Wicked? "Not Wicked!" he bellowed. "How can you be so sure she wasn't wicked! She was the one who did this to me! She turned me to tin. Her and her sister were the bane of my life!"

Glinda's tears abruptly stopped once Boq began his tirade. Then it struck her… "Her sister…?" She stood to her full height, peering at him closely, causing his demeanor to shift from offensive to defensive. After a moment, her eyes refocused and she whispered, astonished, "…Boq?"

He stared at her, first in horror at having been recognized, then in a sort of warm astonishment. "You… you remembered my name."

Glinda frowned at him. "Well, I have matured considerably since university, you know." She paced around the table that was between him, positioning herself to be only inches away from his face. "I can't believe you," she spat out venomously. "You _knew _her! You knew she was a good soul, and YOU KILLED HER!"

"She turned me into this monster!" he recovered quickly.

Glinda's eyes widened. A moment later, her eyes were mere slits as she angrily slapped Boq across the face with a resounding "CRACK!"

Unfortunately, Boq didn't even flinch, not feeling the pain. Glinda had broken several of the bones in her right hand, and was now cradling it close to her chest, feeling the rapid beating of her own heart, and screaming several colorful curses before calming down enough to staunch the blood flow.

"Maybe you're tin because of her," she hissed out between gasps of pain, "but you're heartless because of Nessa. Becoming the Tin Man was the only way Elphie could manage to save your life."

"How would you--?"

"I just now pieced it together. Elphie had alluded something to her sister having done something to you. I always thought Nessa had killed you, but this, in some weird way, makes more sense."

Boq was speechless. "She was lying…" Well, almost speechless.

"In all the time I knew her, I never knew her to lie. Not once." Glinda made her way back to the stairway, intent on tending to her arm, and turning back once more to shoot a spiteful glare his way. "Good day to you, Master _Boq_." She turned and continued up the stairs, shouting back, "I should like you to leave my home, immediately!"


	3. Chapter 3

Glinda sat at her vanity, barefoot and clutching one of her big, fluffy bath towels between her toes and trying to tear it into strips with her good hand. She had intended to use it as a bandage, but gave up, tying it around her neck for use as a sling instead. Leaving the arm exposed now, she could at least clean it off with the brandy she kept in the drawer in her nightstand.

A knock at her door caused her to jump, spilling the rest of the brandy on her skirt. Cursing under her breath, she made her way to the door, dragging her left hand along the wall, woozy from blood loss and feeling like she could just pass out at any moment. She leaned against the door, placed her hand on the doorknob, but didn't open it yet.

"What? Who is it? What do you want?"

And elderly man's voice, one of the servants in the palace, sounded back to her. "Master Tin Man informed us that you'd injured yourself as he left, and that you may need assistance, Lady Glinda."

"No, I'm fine," she lied. "I don't need anything."

"Well, Miss, at least take your supper, then," came a young maid's voice.

Knowing she should eat something to keep her strength up, Glinda opened the door a crack.

The old butler's nose twitched as the smell of alcohol wafted over towards himself and the maid.

"You're certain you're alright, Madame?"

Glinda took the tray from the young girl and started closing the door. She overheard the young lady remark of her smelling of liquor, and how that could be the explanation of how she had stood up for the Wicked Old Witch.

Enraged, Glinda threw the door back open and flung the tray and all of its contents at their retreating forms, screaming at them, "Get out! Go away! Leave me alone with my misery! No one is to bother me! Go on! Get out!" over and over again, until it just became unintelligible shrieks of anguish.

Glinda slammed the door shut and flung herself onto her bed, bawling until finally, the combined causes of blood loss and her outburst caused her to faint.


	4. Chapter 4

Glinda still lay unconscious on her stomach on her bed in the small hours of the morning, her bedroom door locked, and the palace nearly abandoned as most of the servants fled after news of her explosion earlier in the afternoon. Glinda the Good, who always looked composed and proper, looked rather undignified this night, all disheveled and sleeping fitfully.

The wind howled outside, and a particularly strong gust of wind blew open the doors to the balcony. The doors slammed against the wall behind them, but Glinda didn't even stir, much to the delight of the cloaked figure coming through the window, riding on the wind.

But Glinda still slept soundly, even as the figure's shadow crept over her.


	5. Chapter 5

Glinda the Good awoke with the light shining on her eyelids and a breeze hitting her face, which was odd, as she always drew the doors to her balcony closed before going to bed, to protect herself from the elements as she slept.

She tried to remember if she'd forgotten to last night, but found that she couldn't remember the night at all. Panicking, she sat up abruptly, eyes bleary and still disoriented, and feeling strong, slender hands gently guiding her back down to lay on the bed.

The bed was lumpy, she noticed, now.

…This wasn't her bed.

Panicking, she tried to sit up again, but the hands held her down.

"Relax, Glinda," whispered a soft, soothing voice. "You're alright. You're with me and Fiyero now."

Glinda kept her eyes closed, trying to quell her dizziness. "Fiyero's dead," she slurred.

The first voice gasped and the sound of feet shuffling quickly across the floor sounded. A second voice spoke.

"Not as such, actually, no."

The voice was familiar, and she couldn't quite place it, but in her muddled mind, she could at least figure who it was.

"Hello, Glinda," she looked up to see the Scarecrow smiling warmly down at her.

"Oh, my. I haven't seen you in ages." She squirmed to find a more comfortable position. "From the way you spoke, I thought you to be someone else…"

He laughed and looked like he was about to say something, but instead was suddenly and forcefully pulled out of her field of vision by a gloved hand.

Now, with nothing left to focus on, Glinda's vision swam, and she shut her eyes tightly, choosing instead to try and listen for clues to what had happened. After a few moments of hushed and indecipherable whispers, though, Glinda knew she wouldn't be able to gain any insight, and let herself relax and wait for information to come to her.

Finally, at the sound of shuffling feet coming her way, Glinda opened her eyes to see the Scarecrow holding a tray of fruits and milk, setting it on the table next to her bed. He smiled again when he saw her watching him, though this time the smile was a little more forced.

"How are you feeling?"

Glinda groaned. "Death would be a welcome change from this existence." She reached over for the tray, but the searing pain in her right hand sent the argument with Boq to the forefront of her memory. She peered closely at the Scarecrow. "Say," she said suspiciously, "who are you in there?"

The Scarecrow visibly stiffened, which was something, considering his well-known flexibility.

Encouraged by his reaction, she pressed on. "Surely you weren't always stuffed with straw. Aside from you, the Tin Man was the only other creature of your sort; neither Animal nor human, I mean. And I recently discovered that the Tin Man was once an old classmate of mine, turned into what he is by a desperate spell by my old friend Elphie--."

The clatter of falling pots and pans sounded suddenly from the other room, followed by a soft choking sound. Someone was listening to them.

Glinda whirled back on the Scarecrow, ignoring her head's protest of dizziness. "What was that? Who are you, really, Scarecrow!"

When he didn't answer, backing away from her with the wide eyes of someone who knew they'd been trapped, Glinda gingerly but swiftly slid out of bed and made her way to the room's entrance.

Throwing the door open, Glinda took one solid step through, but her second one faltered at what she saw. There, sitting on the floor, holding a child of no more than four months, was…

"Elphie?"

* * *

Yay! Everybody's favourite green-'n'-burlap couple is back! And they's gots a baby! A little one! Whoa! 

Now, as a thank you, click on that lil ol' gray button and review to give me feedback. And don't worry the actual plot is coming in a couple of chapters.

Oh! And thanks to all the folks who reviewed, in particular PinkElphaba, and GalindatheGreat, whose anxious review of chapter 4 made me laugh! And, yeah, I'm trying to make the chapters longer. The length depends on where there are scene changes or dramatic moments.


	6. Chapter 6

Elphaba swore, mentally. She'd been caught. She looked down at her daughter, with her brown hair and eyes, and naturally reddish (but still normal, compared to green) skin. Then she looked back up at Glinda, expecting tears, but finding instead fiery anger burning in those green eyes.

Glinda turned around, back into the room, and reappeared in front of Elphaba with the Scarecrow in tow. She threw him to the ground with strength belying her small stature, but knowing he would feel no pain. She pointed a shaky finger at him. "Fiyero."

He said nothing, and she took it for confirmation. Elphaba handed the baby to Fiyero and stood up slowly.

"Sweet Oz," Glinda began through clenched teeth. "You-- I can't-- Everyone from Shiz! Everyone I knew and cared for, who I thought to be dead, is alive and well? Masquerading about as the 'Heroes of Oz.' Next you'll tell me Nessarose was the Cowardly Lion!"

Elphaba glared at her friend and gave her a slap that sent her reeling, but Elphaba was always quick on her feet, and caught her friend before she could hit the ground. She didn't apologize for hitting her, though.

Glinda stared up at her, eyes wide and the wind knocked out of her. "I guess not then, hm?" She cast her eyes down. "I-- I'm sorry I brought her up."

Elphaba hadn't spoken a word yet. She guided her friend down to the floor, so that she might sit next to her family. Elphaba moved across from Glinda and sat down. She took her baby from Fiyero and rocked her gently, as the child had starting fussing in all the commotion.

Glinda couldn't take the silence. "Elphie," her friend flinched imperceptibly, "say something."

Elphaba continued staring at her baby girl for several moments longer. After the silence, filled only with Glinda's impatient fidgeting, Elphaba met her friend's eyes with a small smile. She scooted over to Glinda and held out her child. "This is Galinda," she whispered.

Glinda's face softened immediately and tears formed in her eyes as she took little Galinda and cradled her in her arms. "Oh, Elphie, she's so beautiful. She looks nothing like you."

Elphaba knew she meant no insult, but still feigned hurt and moved to take back her child, but Glinda moved her out of her mother's reach with a giggle and a childish "No!"

Meanwhile, Fiyero watched their antics with a small smile.

Glinda caught him watching and stopped struggling, pressing a foot against Elphaba's collarbone to keep her at bay.

"You're a bastard," she said as if it were something she'd only now noticed. Not really an insult, more of an observation.

Elphaba pulled away from Glinda's foot-hold, panting. "Excuse me?"

Glinda glanced over at her, but the baby started squirming, and her attention went straight to Galinda. Despite her best efforts, though, baby Galinda continued to wriggle around in her namesake's arms.

"Oh, you had better believe there are some hard feelings," Glinda said in a cutesy voice, trying to educate her friends to her problem and play with the baby at the same time. "You both made me think you'd died. Elphie, I can forgive you a little easier because I guess I understand where you were coming from. But Fiyero… We met on several occasions since your, um, transformation, and you just… " she trailed off, clenching her good fist in a threatening manner, letting the baby lean on her injured arm.

Elphaba and Fiyero glanced at each other, guiltily.

"Plus, at first I was upset at Elphie for stealing you, but, really, you completely stole my best friend out of my life, Fiyero Tiggular, you rat bastard pimple fart!"

Fiyero had the good grace to look abashed, but Elphaba started laughing.

"What a magnificent insult."

Glinda shot her a look. Then the baby started squirming again.

After a moment, Elphaba's shoulders shook with quiet laughter. "Just as fidgety as her aunt," she said, amused.

Glinda looked up, distracted from her anger by new information. "Nessa was fidgety?"

Elphaba smiled at her friend's obliviousness. "You are, you blonde."

"I am not," Glinda said as she handed Elphaba the baby and tossed her hair back, indignantly.

"You'll be proud to know I finally got it," Elphaba said.

"What?"

"Toss toss," she said as she demonstrated.

Glinda smiled wryly. "Have you been practicing?" she asked incredulously. "I _am_ proud!"

Elphaba blushed, embarrassed. "I missed you."

"At least you had someone you love."

"You had us, Glinda. You just didn't know it," Fiyero said good-naturedly.

Glinda looked at him flatly. "Shut up."

Brainless as he was, Fiyero still caught on that Glinda was going to be cold to him for a while. So, stretching his arms at an angle that would be impossible for any normal human, he got up and excused himself. "It's a little cold in here," he nodded to Glinda with a tight smile. "I think I'll go for a walk in the woods."

Once he left, Glinda asked, "Woods? Where are we?"

Elphaba sighed. "Somewhere in Quox, I think. To the northeast of Oz is as far as I can tell."

"We're… outside of Oz?" Glinda breathed out. "Why? How?"

"Magic."

"Just… magic?"

Elphaba shrugged her shoulders.

"Is that all you're going to tell me?"

"Yes. We flew over the impassable desert, if that's what you really wanted to know."

"No, I want to know the why, too. Why did you bring me here? Not that I'm not overwhelmed with happiness to see you and know you're alive, mind you."

"Of course," Elphaba rolled her eyes. "Like I said. I missed you. Every once and again, I journey back into Oz. I try to be there for major events so I can see you make your speeches. I blend into the crowd and just watch like everyone else. Fiyero hates it when I go."

"Oh, he doesn't come to visit, does he?" Glinda asked haughtily.

"I make him stay," Elphaba assured her, defending her lover. "Your speech the other day was… heart-warming. But I thought I told you not to try and clear my name."

"I thought you were dead, so it didn't matter. I didn't realize you'd come back to haunt me." Glinda sniffled. "Oh, Elphie!" And in a fit of emotion, Glinda flung herself forward, to crush her friend in a hug, but quickly pulled away from the pain in her wrist, hissing.

"How did you do that, anyways?" Elphaba asked, taking her child back, and then taking Glinda's arm by the elbow and examining it. "What did you hit?"

"I slapped the Tin Man for being Boq." She paused and looked at Elphaba. "And for killing you. I can't believe Boq was one of the witch hunters. Did you-- Why did you turn him into tin, exactly?"

Elphaba nodded. "Nessa cast a spell. I tried to counter it. As always, I messed up."

"I thought that's what happened. He was always annoying, though," Glinda tried to reassure her friend. "It figures he'd grow up to be ungrateful, too."

Elphaba chuckled. "Thank you."

"So, again, why did you bring me here?"

Elphaba gave her a wry smile. "After you dove back into the palace, when people started throwing things, people even started talking about organizing a revolt. In fact, right after I'd loaded you onto the broom with me, I saw people sneaking into the palace."

"How do you know they were sneaking in?"

"They were using the same loose stones I used when I snuck in." Elphaba laughed. "Ah, memories."

"I guess neither of us can go back to Oz, then. Oh, well." Glinda laughed for a moment, then looked back at the baby in Elphaba's arms. "Motherhood suits you." She looked thoughtful. "She really does look just like you. And she's beautiful."

Elphaba laughed. "Well, that would be quite a feat. She's adopted."

"Oh. I didn't think Fiyero had straw… man-bits. How does that work?"

Elphaba blushed. "Oh, we still make out like crazy." She bounced baby Galinda on her knee. "We came across this cabin a few months ago. Normally, we live off of the land and camp out in the woods. But we heard screaming and wailing coming from inside, and I went to investigate. There was a woman giving birth. Fiyero and I tried to help her through it as best we could, but she died in childbirth. She died before she could name her baby. I decided to name her after you. So I'd still be with you in some way. Not because I ever liked your name or anything."

Glinda wasn't offended. "Why do you think I changed it so readily?"

"Uh-huh, that's why," said Elphaba, unconvinced. Then she grew serious. "We don't plan to stay here long. Now that Galinda is old enough to travel, we'll be heading out in a day or two, so you have enough time to rest up."

"Where did you plan on going?" Glinda asked, trying to fathom where her friend's head was at.

"I was wondering what that 'Kansas' place would be like," Elphaba grew wistful.

"Oh, Kansas, huh?" Glinda tried to sound nonchalant. "Interesting."

"I know the Wizard was my father," Elphaba smiled pitifully at Glinda.

"You do?"

"Yeah, I figured it out," she sighed. "Stupid old man. But it made me think, maybe that's why I'm green. Maybe there are more people like me outside of Oz." She looked hopefully at Glinda. "Do you think so? I think so. I think I could make a new life there."

Glinda laid a hand on Elphaba's. "Of course I'll come and try to help any way I can."

Elphaba smiled brilliantly.

"But you really oughta feed me first."

* * *

A/N: Holeeeeee COW! Apparently, alls I needed to do was get the two buddies together again to get the review flood-gates to burst open! 11 reviews this chapter! Whoa! 

Well, now, I hope I don't disappoint too much, but alas I shall be going to Florida at the end of the week, so I may not update for a few days. I'm gonna try ot get the next chapter up before I go. I think I'll have inter-web access where I'm staying, but I'm not sure. I will try my darndest.

On a side note, I had the next 7 chapters written for this thing, but I re-read them, and hated them because I got an awesome new idea for where this shall go… MWAHAHAHAHA! Next chapter is gonna be awesome. I promise.

And a review response to Bernie: As you (I'm sure) read above, no the baby is not Liir. Liir can go suck a duck. I never liked him in the book. He was so… stupid. Gah. I dunno, I just figured, this is a musical-verse fic, so I can do whatever I want. Oh! Speaking of which, the Wicked Book sequel is coming out in October. It's called "Son of a Witch," and is all about Liir. I'm still gonna read it, though.

And thanks to everyone elses' loverly reviews! Keep on reading! I'm trying to make the chapters longer; each one at least 1000 words. Anywho… Later, all!


	7. Chapter 7

After dinner, everyone got ready for bed. The baby was put into her crib, a functional cloth piece that could easily be traveled with. Fiyero lay on the floor in the other room, not sleeping, and the position not bothering him in the slightest.

He was his own pillow.

Meanwhile, in the cabin's one bedroom, the two best friends shared the bed. Still woozier than she'd let on, Glinda soon fell asleep, and, being a heavy sleeper, didn't wake when Elphaba got up and went into the kitchen.

In the morning, Glinda rolled over, and, finding the other side of the bed empty, bolted straight up. She ran into the kitchen, jumped over Fiyero, who was reading on the floor, and looked around wildly.

Fiyero didn't bother to look up.

Elphaba, at the stove, stirring a pot over the fireplace with one hand and holding her baby with the other, resting her on her hip, stared at her with wide eyes.

Glinda saw her and relaxed immediately. "Sorry," she said, addressing the confused and worried look on her friend's green face. "You weren't next to me when I got up, and I panicked, I guess. I just found you. I don't want to lose you again."

Elphaba smiled at the sentiment and walked over. "I'm an early riser," she said, handing Galinda to Glinda. "You know that." Then she turned back around and continued cooking.

Glinda sat at the small table in the middle of the room, holding the baby out a bit. It was spooky how much this baby actually did look like Elphie. And what was a Quadling doing so far north, let alone outside of Oz? The baby clapped her hands and dove forward, making Glinda bring her closer to be cradled against her chest, and take the strain off of her aching hand.

The baby cooed and grabbed one of Glinda's golden curls, and promptly put it in her mouth.

Elphaba looked over when she heard Glinda's laughter, and smiled at her friend and her daughter's playfulness. Glancing down at the pot, Elphaba noted that breakfast was done, and used a roughly carved ladle to pour the cornmeal into two wooden bowls. She carried them to the table and sat across from Glinda, pushing one of the bowls towards her and motioning that she let the baby sit on the floor.

Elphaba ducked her head and began eating her breakfast, but Glinda stopped after one bite to examine her bestest friend in the whole wide world. When Elphaba looked up with a questioning glance, Glinda quickly looked away, choosing instead to take a better look at the house.

"Sooooo… What do we plan to do when we get to Kansas?" she asked tentatively.

"I honestly have no idea," Elphaba admitted. "I think maybe… Just explore for a while. See what kind of magic such a place holds…" Her voice was taking on a dreamy tone, and Glinda cut her off, slamming her spoon down onto the table, causing Elphaba to look up sharply.

"I'm sorry. This is all so-- It just struck me; we haven't seen each other in over seven years." Glinda looked down at her hands. "How do we know we're even the same people anymore? How do you know I haven't changed in some undesirable way?"

Elphaba considered it for a moment, then smiled. "Why, Miss Upland, I never knew you to be so contemplative!"

"That's exactly my point!" Glinda stood abruptly and threw her hands in the air. "I wasn't! I never really thought things through back when we were at Shiz!"

"Plus she hates me now," Fiyero piped up from the floor on the other side of the room.

"Quiet, you!" Glinda pointed a menacing finger at him before turning back to face Elphaba. "I just can't help but feel that we don't really know each other anymore."

"Glinda," Elphaba began, "What's there to know? What could have changed us so much?"

"Your death!"

Elphaba's smile disappeared.

Glinda was trembling, struggling with her words and emotions. "When I thought you'd died… You have no idea. Yes, I smiled. And I waved. And I… died, too." Her shoulders slumped. "Back when you started your campaign against the wizard, I could function well enough. I could tell myself you were alright and following the path you wanted. And I could go on. But when I saw you… melt… It was like it became final. I'd betrayed you. I'd worked for the man you abandoned your dreams to fight because it was the right thing to do. I sold out… And I couldn't say I was sorry. And I am… so sorry. I should have gone with you. I should've gotten onto that broom."

Elphaba, for once, was speechless. What could she say to that?

"I've noticed you have changed," Glinda continued. "At least a little. You seem really… light-hearted now. Happy-go-lucky."

"Is that a bad thing?" Elphaba demanded.

"No, but… It's just not you. You were always either neurotic or apathetic. Never really relaxed. I'm happy you're happy. But, you're not the same. I'm not the same…" She held her head in her hands. "I don't know what to do. I should be happy, but I just…"

Elphaba thought her friend's words over, and stood and walked over to where Glinda covered her face to hide her tears.

"We'll just start over, then." Elphaba smiled reassuringly at her friend

Fiyero's quiet laughing drew their attention.

"What are you laughing at, Straw-Boy?" Glinda asked, annoyed, wiping her eyes.

"You've traded places."

"What?" they asked in stereo, one in confusion, the other grumpily.

"Personality-wise." Fiyero chuckled again. "Elphaba found love and learned to open up. And, I am sorry, but Glinda finally felt real loss, and… well you're kinda cynical now."

Glinda glared so hard at him, as if to set his stupid straw aflame.

"Fiyero, darling, are you saying that I was a cynical youth?" Elphaba said, in a playfully dangerous voice.

"Uhhh.. Anyways, so if you've traded personalities, you needn't worry. If thigns really get that bad, you should both still like each other, but only after a small period of discomfort, remedied by an act of kindness or of good faith."

"Just like last time, eh?" Elphaba looked pensive, though. "Hey, now. If she's really got the sunny disposition I bore in college, then she's only acting so heartless to you because she still has feelings for you…" Elphaba slowly turned her head to look at Glinda through suspiciously narrow eyes.

Glinda did her best to hide behind baby Galinda, who was trying her hardest to look behind her and see what her namesake was doing. "I do not," she said meekly. "I have completely gotten over him and the horrible… gut-wrenching pain his abandonment brought."

Elphaba tilted her head away from her friend and took a calming breath. "I am confident enough in mine and Fiyero's love and in our friendship that I will not let this bother me," she said in a soft voice, obviously trying to convince all of them, including herself. "I _won't_."

Glinda felt there was an underlying threat in that statement. "I really think there's more anger there than anything else." She looked at Fiyero pointedly. "I don't exactly hate you, but boy, do I resent you."

Fiyero smiled both amused and smugly, infuriating Glinda. Elphaba was petulant.

"Why don't we talk about something else?" she reasoned. "We're going to be traveling soon, and we don't want to be angry at each other at a time like this." She turned to Glinda. "Do you feel up to traveling?"

Glinda tore her fiery gaze away from Fiyero and shrugged at her friend. "After a good couple of meals and a full night's sleep, I'm well enough. Just make sure I don't have to walk beside _him_."

Elphaba smiled slyly. "Who said anything about walking?" She walked into the bedroom.

Glinda wrinkled her nose in confusion, making Elphaba smile at the sight of a Galinda-ish trait. "How exactly did you plan to get to Kansas, then?"

"I was thinking," Elphaba reentered the kitchen holding a few worn-out pieces of parchment, "Maybe a change in the weather…"

* * *

Howdy all! I have inter-web access! Here is the chapter I wrote on the horribly long and uncomfortable road trip I took on the way down here! Yay! As you can see, them getting back together again is not the answer to all of our heroines' problems. Will they work through it? Will there be an explosion of festering feeling flowing from the fabulacious Glinda formerly known as "the Good?" Maybe. Maybe not. I'm making this up as I go along. There is, of course, a real plot, but I am really just winging it as I go. 

On a side note:

Okay, so yeah, I'm in Florida, and I just got back from DisneyWorld, and I had the sooo much fun! I rode Space Mountain so many times I'm on a first-name basis with all of the folks who run the ride. It was a blast! And I was the only adult to sit in for story-time with Belle. I'm so immature.

I love it.

Anywho, so that's the new chapter! Thanks to all those who have reviewed, and put me on their favourites lists, and keep on reviewing! Lemme know what you think of new developments as they show up! Thanks!


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: I'm back from Florida! Okay, this chapter intros a new character, and there will be several new people each chapter because, after all, our favorite family unit (plus Glinda) have just made it to the outside world. There are going to be perspective changes, which are a mixed blessing because I don't want to do them, but they'll probably make the chapters longer. Plus they're necessary due to… current events. Oh, and there's some cursing herein because people in the real world often have potty mouths. If it gets stupid at any point, please tell me. Or you could, y'know, just review anyways…

* * *

Samantha Larsen tightly hummed the William Tell Overture and kept her arms at 10 and 2, muscles flexed, trying to keep the car steady against the sudden howling winds trying to push her off the road. 

"Go fucking figure this happens the night I have to drive back to school."

There were no other cars on route 41, going south towards Chicago. Even though there should have been a rush into the city to get back after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the rest of the folks on the road had been smart enough to find shelter during the storm, but Sam had to press on, had to get back to the city in time to do some last minute studying and finish her homework.

She was so focused on driving, she was only a couple of hours away from her apartment downtown, but she failed to notice something huge crashing to the ground in front of her until the last moment. She jerked the steering wheel to the left, spinning out and making the rear of the car bump into the thing that was blocking the road.

Panting hard, she tried to calm her nerves before shutting off her car's engine and unbuckling her seatbelt. She leaned back into her seat for a while, feeling her heartbeat slow back to normal. Then in the silence of the moment… She noticed the silence. The winds had abruptly stopped.

Keeping the headlights on, so no passing cars could miss her and accidentally hit her, she opened the door and went around behind it to examine the damage, and see just what the hell had fallen in front of her.

The damage wasn't bad. The bumper was dented, but that wasn't a big deal, she could get her uncle to hammer it out for about twenty bucks. Then she turned around.

A small, dilapidated house stood on the road in front of her.

"What the hell…?"

It wasn't damaged at all. Except for the crappy condition it appeared to already have been in, of course.

Sam made her way around to the other side of the house, to the front door. She felt obligated to make sure no one was hurt inside. She opened the door and stepped inside, calling out for anyone who might be inside to answer.

Glinda had started screaming as soon as the cabin had been lifted off of the ground. She continued screaming while the cabin spun around inside the cyclone, and only stopped screaming when a sudden jerk told her they had finally landed.

When that had happened, the two of them were flung across the room, into each other, and subsequently into unconsciousness.

Fiyero didn't notice. He'd had himself wrapped around Galinda like a blanket, acting as a cushion for her for the entirety of their flight.

Suddenly, the door to the cabin creaked open, prompting Fiyero's hushed and muffled voice to call out, "Don't make a sound," because, after all, they had no idea what the people of this world might be like.

"Hello?" a woman's voice called out. "Is anyone in here? Are you alright?"

Fiyero stayed in position protecting his daughter, thinking that his lover and former self-proclaimed fiancée had heeded his words perfectly.

With the door fully opened, the intruding woman entered, silhouetted against tall street lamps in the distance.

Taking in the sight of the cabin's sparse furnishings in the dim light, she stared at the two unconscious forms on the floor. She moved in closer to take their pulses. Once she confirmed they were indeed alive, she gently lifted each of their eyelids, using a keychain flashlight to check for pupil dilation. Satisfied that neither appeared to have any serious injuries, not even a concussion it looked like, she examined the women themselves in the super-bright LED light of her keychain.

Then she started laughing.

Fiyero didn't budge at the noise, trusting his love to keep herself safe, and counting on himself to do so for baby Galinda.

The woman stifled her laughter, and spoke quietly to herself, meaning Fiyero could only make out the words, "I get it… publicity thing gone wrong…"

The woman fairly easily picked up Elphaba, as, though she was tall, she was always slender, and walked out the door. After a moment, she came back inside and admittedly had a tougher time with Glinda. The woman seemed to be considering wrapping Glinda's arms around her neck and carrying her piggy-back outside, but with Glinda's injured wrist, that could turn out badly.

The woman did eventually manage to stagger out with Glinda in her arms, kicking the door closed behind her, most likely out of habit.

Finally, a high-pitched squeal could be heard retreating off into the distance. Taking that as a signal that the danger had passed, Fiyero raised his head.

"Elphaba?"

* * *

Feedback? 


	9. Chapter 9

"Elphaba?"

Fiyero's quiet question received no answer, so he waited a moment more to simply listen and make sure there was no imminent threat. After another minute or so, he fully unwrapped himself from around his daughter. He cradled her close to his chest and examined her for any injuries. Luckily, she'd slept peacefully through the whole ordeal. Fiyero suspected that it may have been Elphaba's doing; a spell, perhaps, to keep little Galinda from panicking.

Thinking of his love, he looked over to the chair in the kitchen she had been sitting on with a cautious smile. The smile soon faded, however, when he realized that Elphaba was no longer there. Neither was Glinda. In fact, neither of them were anywhere he could see in this darkness.

Bouncing Galinda up to get her situated in one arm, Fiyero shuffled over to the door and flung it open, turning around right away now that there was light to see by.

In the cabin, even in the light, he couldn't see anyone. His eyes scanned the entire room, and ducked his head inside the bedroom to see if they might have gone in there for whatever reason.

Sure they were no longer in the cabin, he turned around and got his first real look at the world outside the cabin. He saw a long grey paved road with a broken white line down the middle and an unbroken line on each edge. There were bright and tall street lamps on either side of it, and at what appeared to be the end of the road, at the horizon line, he saw a grand city with huge buildings and lights that he assumed meant a lantern hanging from every window.

Fiyero stared at the sight in awe, until his daughter shoved a hand into his shirt and pulled out a fistful of straw. Glad for the distraction, he turned away from the distant city, screaming out "Elphaba" as he whirled around.

Silence answered him, so he turned to go back into the cabin to think.

There, on the door, someone had adhered a note.

-----

Glinda breathed in a sweet scent. Like melons and pears. With a perfume-y undertone.

She wanted a pear, now. That smell was appetizing. She opened her eyes slowly, deliberately stretching her arms to the side, brushing against something soft.

It was fast becoming a bad habit of hers to pass out and wake up in strange and unfamiliar surroundings. Though, she had to admit, it did make for a mode of transport even more unique than her old bubble contraption.

She turned over in the soft bed and came face to face with a small orange housecat with a white stripe down one side. She moved to scratch it behind the ears, but stopped short to stare at her freshly bandaged arm.

"Who did this?" she asked herself.

Then the cat rubbed itself against her, and she brought her attention back to it, gently smoothing its fur with the back of her hand.

"Hello there," Glinda said softly. "What's your name?"

"Her name's Streaky," a voice interrupted from at her feet.

Glinda looked up to see a woman about ten years younger than her, dressed very oddly indeed in trousers and a red shirt that looked to her to be a tunic. "Who are you?"

"My name's Samantha Larsen." The woman pulled up a chair and Glinda propped herself up onto her elbows as she sat. "Call me Sam."

Glinda nodded absent-mindedly, looking around. "Where's Elphie?"

"Elphie?"

"Elphaba."

"Your green friend?" Sam asked with a smile.

Glinda nodded.

"Cool name. She's on the sofa bed in the living room. She got quite a conk on the head," the woman slid a bowl and a glass towards her and then got up to blow out the pink candle on the dresser that was making the pleasant fruity smell Glinda was enjoying. "Here's something if you're hungry."

Glinda swung her feet over the edge of the bed and sat fully upright. Peering closely at the bowl for a moment, she lifted the spoon out and let the gray stuff plop back into the bowl in soggy clumps. Glinda made a face and pushed it away. It did _not_ look appetizing.

Samantha laughed. "It's oatmeal. It's better than it looks."

Glinda made no move towards it, but instead stood up and walked to a mirror mounted on the wall. She knew ignoring her host was frightfully rude, but at this point, she didn't give a damn. Current events were just throwing her for a loop lately; she needed to do something mindless for a while. She examined her reflection; she looked beautiful as ever, but her creamy complexion was marred by an ugly bruise on her jawline.

A distant noise caught her attention, and she moved to a window

"Sweet Oz," she breathed out, amazed at the grandeur of the city before her. The road were all paved, with strange tiktok creatures roaming them, stopping and going when lanterns at the crossroads changed colour. The buildings were taller than any tower of the Emerald Palace. A huge body of water in the distance with no end in sight caught her eye, and she wondered if maybe she'd found the fabled ocean. "What are we doing here? Where are we?"

"My apartment in Chicago," Samantha started. "Your, uh, house almost fell onto my car. I didn't see anyone else around, saw you two out cold, and brought you into the city. There was no one else around. Like, no crew or anything. I couldn't just leave you there, right?"

Glinda paused a moment. "You only saw the two of us? Elphaba and me?"

"Yeah."

"Could you go wake her up, please?" she asked, worried.

Samantha shrugged. "Sure." She walked to the door. "Be right back."

Once she left the room, Glinda sat back down on the bed. They weren't in Oz. But they weren't in Kansas. And they didn't know where Fiyero and Galinda were. Elphie was not going to take this well.

-----

Fiyero walked down the road, towards the city lights in the distance, holding his sleeping daughter against his chest, and trying to make heads or tails of the note that was left on his home's door.

He'd been frightened at first, not knowing where his Elphaba was, fearing one of the mechanical beasts that sped past him every few minutes had made off with her.

Now he was desperately trying to flag one down whenever they passed, hoping to ask it for information or for a lift into the city or something.

After several hours, Galinda had woken up crying, and Fiyero stopped walking, trying to calm her down by making funny faces or singing softly. As his efforts proved fruitless, though, one of the tiktok beasts pulled over and a flap on its side opened. Fiyero watched as a man stepped out.

"Good morning to you," the man, an older fellow now that Fiyero'd gotten a good look at him, said. "That's quite a get-up you got on there."

Fiyero glanced down at his clothes. "Thank you?"

The old man laughed, his skin crinkling around his eyes. "You need a lift into the city?"

"Yes, please, sir," Fiyero answered, being as polite as possible to the only person in this strange land who was willing to give him a hand.

-----

Glinda was waiting patiently for the young woman, "Sam," to come back into the room with Elphaba in tow. They needed to make plans on how to live here, find out what life was like outside of Oz. They needed to figure out how they were going to find baby Galinda. And, she supposed, Elphie would want Fiyero back, too.

Glinda's head jerked up and that train of thought was derailed when she heard a shout from the other room. She hiked up her skirts and ran into the other room just in time to see Samantha being flung against the wall opposite where Elphaba was standing. Glinda rushed to help her up.

"Elphie, what are you doing!"

"She tried to kill me!" Elphaba jabbed an accusing finger at Samantha.

"Whuh?" Samantha said, dazed. "Whoa, waitaminit-- ! All I did was wipe her face with a wet cloth, and she wakes up screaming 'Assassin!'"

"See? She _admits _it!" Another finger jab.

Glinda rolled her eyes at her friend. "Oh, for Oz's sake, Elphaba… Water doesn't even hurt you at all, right?"

Elphaba deflated a little. "Well the point is she _thought_ she was going to use my supposed 'one weakness' against me." She whirled back to face Samantha, who looked more confused than anything else, twisting her back to stretch out the area where her back hit the wall. "Isn't that right?"

"You're really paranoid," Samantha observed.

"Thank you!" Glinda threw her hands in the air.

"I was just trying to clean off the stupid green make-up," Sam continued, matter-of-factly.

Elphaba's eyes narrowed, but Glinda's widened, and she made a quiet "oh" sound.

"What?" Elphaba demanded.

"She thinks it's _make-up_," Glinda explained, eyebrows raised.

Elphaba's eyebrows furrowed. "Where are we?"

"In my apartment," Samantha said slowly, shifting her eyes between the two other women. "In Chicago."

"Right, well," Glinda said, clapping her hands together and holding them clasped against her chest. She had already looked out the window over the city, after all. "Is that anywhere near Kansas?"

Samantha tilted her chin up and took a step back, stuffing her hands in her pockets and generally acting like the women in front of her were insane, which she was starting to suspect might be the case. Particularly the green one. Everyone was suddenly very tense. "You can drop the act now."

"What act?" the old friends asked in unison.

Samantha sighed. "The whole house-falling from the sky thing you all pulled was a publicity thing, right? For that musical opening up here next week."

Glinda puzzled over what Samantha said, not understanding all of the words, but Elphaba didn't even bother. Instead, now that she'd calmed down from mild panic to just being tense in general, she decided to take a look around her…

"Where is my family?"

Glinda and Samantha turned slowly to face Elphaba, Glinda already looking wary of her. She laughed nervously.

"Now, Elphie, you must promise me you'll stay calm…"

* * *

A/N: Another chapter done… School's starting up soon, but that shouldn't really affect me; I'll probably be doing this instead of homework! This semester's gonna be pretty easy, I think. Anyways, as you all can see, the group may not get back together for a while… Don't kill me. There is a plan. I have an outline. --waves hands around-- OOOOoooooOOooooooh, outline! 

Ahem.

A few review responses:

blufair: yeah, I was toying with them being in the early 1900s, but I have plans for each of the characters that wouldn't work back in the day. I, too, always figured time moved differently in both places, anyways. And yes, I_ am _calling Glinda fat! I mean, she's not fat, but as far as I'm concerned, because she's been the living the life of royalty, having several-course meals and all, and because I saw Wicked with the fabulous Megan Hilty, she's rather… buxom. Yeah… That's a good word... There will be fat jokes! Mostly made by Glinda herself, though… It's gonna be great! Heeheehee.

Singulpurgatory: I didn't understand your review for nothin'. Is "good" meant to be a question? Cuz there are a lot of question marks, both before and after it… What the crap, man?

eLpHaBaFaBaLaElPhIeFaE: Holy crap! You friggin' made my day when I checked the stats thing and found five brand-new reviews. Thanks very much for the compliments, and I intend to keep writing this baby to the end (which will rock the hard core, by the way). So keep reading, and I shall keep writing!

And thanks to new reviewers fae-freak and Shellie, and to repeat reviewers MamaJeanie, Lyndalion16, Mother-Trucker (I love your name!), and blufair.

Keep reviewing!

…

Like, now, maybe?


	10. Chapter 10

Fiyero sat slumped in what he learned was called "the back seat of a car." He held Galinda firmly, but made sure she was comfortable. Somehow, the inside of the car was the perfect temperature, while the outside was no doubt much warmer. But Fiyero had been witness to, and target of, magic, so he felt he was taking the entire situation well in stride.

"Thank you again, sir. If I may ask, though, why did you decide to pick me up when no one else would?" Fiyero asked cautiously but politely.

"My rule of thumb when dealing with hitch-hikers; if they look crazy, they ain't crazy. If they look normal, keep on driving."

The old man, an easy-going fellow named Phillip, drove them towards the city at a rate much quicker than he could have walked there. They'd stopped at some sort of refueling station, and the man's wife, named Mertle, was kind enough to buy Galinda some milk from the small market attached.

Thankfully, Galinda seemed contented now. Fiyero dreaded the moment he had to change a messy diaper, for he had nothing to wash the cloth diaper with, and he didn't want to be a further burden on this nice old couple. Plus, stains and smells tended to set into burlap hands.

Galinda was quiet, but batted at the straw sticking out from under her father's hat. He smiled.

"That is a lovely little girl you have there, Mister…?" Mertle asked him gently, so as not to be too loud and spook the baby.

"Tiggular. Fiyero Tiggular," he said, annunciating his name. "And thank you."

"Oh, my, why is she so red, dear?"

"She's a Quadling, ma'am," Fiyero said, matter-of-factly. "At least, her mother is."

"Oh, but where is the poor dear's mother?" she asked in a saddened voice, not showing if she knew what a Quadling was or not.

"Unfortunately, we were separated shortly after we got to this land, and-- ."

"Oh? That's too bad," piped up Phillip from the driver's seat. "You say you just got hereabouts? Where are you from?"

Fiyero took a moment to think over his answer, but decided these folks were trustworthy enough to know the truth. "Oz, sir."

"Australia, eh?" Phillip said a little too loudly. "I was stationed there when I was in the army, y'know. Just before shipping out to Korea."

"Uhhh, really? How… fascinating." He decided not to correct him on his most peculiar pronunciation of Oz.

"Oh, Phil, don't bore the boy with your old war stories…"

"I'm not boring the boy; anyone would love to hear such tales of adventure and heroism, wouldn't you, Figaro?"

Once again, Fiyero didn't bother correcting him, but rather said he'd love to hear the stories.

"We, my company and I, were to be stationed in Seoul. We shipped out in '51. Me and the good ol' boys left our ladies behind to wait for us. Mertle here was a dear, always sending me cookies and love letters. The letters were a little stale, but she makes the best macaroons. The boys would always try to buy them offa me, tradin' me cigarettes or girlie magazines or unused shells, which didn't turn out for this one fella named Chuck, when he ran out of ammo and got himself shot by one of them Korean crazies 'cause he got too close. Haha! He was not the sharpest tool in the shed…"

-----

Samantha knelt on her living room floor, sweeping the last of the broken glass up. She wasn't really thinking about what she was doing, her body was just moving on its own. She was thinking. Thinking about what the hell had just happened.

Glinda broke the news of their disappearance as gently as she could have-- as anyone could have. Elphaba had been quiet at first, but not solemn or pensive. Rather, it was the kind of quiet there is before a storm.

And what a storm there was. Elphaba's face had contorted in anger, she let out a shriek of rage and her hands shot out, and instantly, almost every item of glass or porcelain in the apartment had shattered, including the French doors to the balcony. She'd then said something in an odd language, which apparently put a hell of a whammy on Samantha's coat rack, because next thing she or Glinda knew, Elphaba was on it and out the window.

Samantha threw the glass, and the dustpan, in the garbage and shuffled over to the couch, collapsing onto it and letting out a slow breath.

Glinda was standing on the balcony, tracking the retreating form of Elphaba on the coat rack.

"Elphie, be reasonable! This is going to get you nowhere!" Glinda shouted. "Elphaba, get your green self over here right now!"

"Why don't you follow her in that bubble thing?"

Glinda turned to look at Samantha, surprised. "So you _do_ know who we are?"

"Doesn't everyone?" Samantha nodded. "Glinda the Good Witch of the North, and the Wicked Witch of the West, whose name is apparently 'Elphaba,' and who has just hexed and stolen my coat rack."

"Oh, then you only know part of the story. She's not really a Wicked Witch, she's just distraught right now. When she gets back you'll see, you don't have to-- ."

"I'm still trying to decide whether or not this is all a hallucination, despite what just happened and the various cuts the glass gave me, so you don't have to worry about me taking any kind of decisive action."

"She'll come back in a bit, and I'm sure she'll help you replace anything she broke, Sammy." Glinda sat next to her on the couch. "Can I call you Sammy?"

Sam put her feet up on the coffee table. "Sure, go for it, Uncle Arthur." The cat, Streaky, leapt up onto her lap, and she stroked her fur down, not seeing Glinda's confused and annoyed look. "This is so crazy. How can you be sure she'll come back? Why don't you go after her?"

"She'll come back. She's very level-headed. Usually." Glinda frowned. "And believe me, I'd go after her if I could."

"Can't you use your magic?"

Glinda's shoulders slumped. "No."

"How can she use hers if you can't use yours?" Samantha asked, confused.

Glinda took a deep breath and sighed. "The truth is...I… I'm completely useless. I'm a fraud. I can't use magic at all. It was all illusions and trickery… Lies, really… It's the one thing I've always wanted, but never gotten. The bubble was an idea I had, and Oz's old Wizard built it_ for _me. I can't even change a frock into a ballgown." She smiled sadly at her admission, but fondly at the memory.

"Bummer. The one thing I've always wanted but never gotten was a pony."

"I had seven growing up in Gillikin."

Samantha took a moment to look Glinda over. She looked like any other person, and, Sam had to admit, knowing she had no powers made it a little easier to accept her. "So Elphaba is really green-skinned?"

"Yes."

"That's nuts. Aside from the skin, she looks normal."

Glinda's heart sank. "You mean… there aren't any green people here?"

"No, why would there be?"

"Elphaba's father was from this world, but her mother was from Oz. We figured that might be why she's green; that there might be other green people here. That maybe she could just blend in and live a new life." Glinda looked hopeful. "Are there green people in Kansas?"

"No, Kansas and Chicago have pretty much the same, uh, 'colour range' of people." Sam was silent for a moment, then smiled slightly. "This is so nuts."

"What does that mean?"

"What?" Sam asked.

"That word. 'Nuts.' You've used it a couple of times," Glinda said, "and I don't think you were talking about cashews."

Sam laughed. "It's slang. It means crazy or weird."

"Oh." Glinda paused before continuing. "At least we speak the same language, by some miraculous coincidence."

"Well, with a few minor discrepancies, yeah." Sam stood up and walked to the window, looking down at the street, where, thankfully none of the glass had fallen onto anyone; most of it had been blown inward. Then she squinted at the sky. "I don't see my coat rack."

"Oh, I'm sure she's long gone by now. You're taking this all pretty well, I think."

Sam waved her off. "Except for the initial shock, of course. But I was raised to believe that just because something's different, doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. You have to make yourself gauge the situation first." She rubbed the back of her neck. "And, call it a hunch, but I feel like things are gonna be mighty different as a result of you people in my life."

"In your life?" Glinda asked. "Surely you don't think we're going to stay here and bother you?"

"Aren't you?" Sam asked, seriously. "I mean, you've got, I assume, no money, and more than likely no clue how things work in the world outside of Oz. Unless you've got a movie about someone from Oz coming here already."

Glinda shook her head. "What's a movie?"

"Ehhh… Never mind. I'm just asking if you've thought out a plan."

Glinda shook her head again, this time a little embarrassed. "Not really."

"Well, you say you want to go to Kansas. First, though, why don't you start out in Chicago. I'll even help you out."

"You really don't have to do that."

"Yeah, yeah," Sam waved her off, sounding defeated, probably by her own conscience. "You can stay with me if you want. It's no problem."

Glinda put her hands up. "Really, you don't have to. I would hate us to be a burden."

"You're already a_ disaster_. I figure you can't get much worse," Sam said with a laugh. "If you're going to 'start a new life' or whatever, I figure Chicago would be a good run. It's a big city, yeah, but not so much as LA or New York, thank God. That place is crazy."

"You mean nuts?" Glinda asked with a smile.

"Yeah." Sam laughed. "Lordy, I feel like I'm John Conner and you're the Terminator."

"What's that?"

"Don't worry about it for now," Samantha said, not feeling up to explaining the history of motion pictures. She leaned back into the sofa. "Hey. While we wait for Elphaba to bring back my coat rack, why don't we try to get to know a little more about each other and our lives and stuff."

"Alright. What should we start with?"

"Well… Do you really regularly break out into song in Oz?"

* * *

A/N: Another chapter done. Yeah, she takes things pretty well in stride, but a lot of people have been, for lack of a better word, desensitized to freakish happenings, so I figure this is a pretty realistic reaction. Especially in Chicago. You see a lot of wierd stuff, particularly downtown, and you just take it in stride. I'm the only person who ever stops to actually look at things and examine strange happenings... Eh... Guess where I'm from, you guys...

Did you all get the Terminator joke and the Bewitched reference?

Now, this is the last chapter I'm uploading before school starts for me on the 29th (GAH!). During the semester either there will be frequent updates with shorter chapters, or updates about every 7-10 days with chapters at least a thousand words in length. Hopefully. Probably.

Now a couple of review responses:

reefer7, eLpHaBaFaBaLaElPhIeFaE, Sinfulpurgatory: Yeah, the musical opening up is Wicked. Of course. But I haven't decided if they're actually gonna go and see it yet. The musical plays into the story, though. And to eLpHaBaFaBaLaElPhIeFaE, there was the next chapter, just to keep you from doing anything crazy from waiting… Haha! That review made me laugh.

Lyndalion16: Your upset I called you a schmuck? Well, you killed Glinda! It's kind of a schmucky thing to do, doncha think? Ahhh, but thank you for reviewing.

MamaJeanie: Ha! I was actually thinking of doing that! Get out of my head! Ahhhhh!

Oh! And if anyone knows HTML or any of that nifty website design whozits, tell me! I've got a nifty "Limited"-related surprise all lined up! But I need help with making a webpage!

Now, I feel I should tell you all, I have seen the future. And the future looks good for those who review, so if you don't want to suck and be the bane of humanity, review.


	11. Chapter 11

After another 3,600 clock ticks, or one hour as it was measured in this place, the old man turned to Fiyero.

"So, where do you want me to let you out?"

Fiyero, who hadn't been paying attention due to the fact that he was in shock over the horrors of Phillip's experiences in the army, looked up and out the window. He stared at the architecture, looking higher and higher. The buildings here were huge! If he could get to the top of one, surely he would be able to look out over the whole of the land.

Finally, he looked back to Phillip, saying dazedly, "Here is good."

He struggled with the door for a moment, before Mertle got out and opened the door for him. He would have blushed at his ineptitude if it were physically possible.

He thanked them again, and Mertle asked if he would be alright with little Galinda; if he had a way to provide for her. Fiyero smiled and told her he was an experienced woodsman.

As he walked away, and Mertle got back into the car, she wondered how in the world that was going to help him here.

----------

Glinda laughed with glee as she played with Samantha's computer, pushing various buttons on the keyboard and moved the mouse around the screen. It was amazing. It was like that other thing, the picture box… No, Sam had called it the "TV." Well, it was like it, but you couldn't control the TV as much. Either way, Glinda had never had so much luck working with any kind of looking glass before.

Collectively, this was all called technology. Glinda was grateful to Samantha for a lot of things. Helping her and Elphie, giving them a friend in this strange new world, and then teaching her all about electronics and how things worked hereabouts. It really gave her something to keep her mind off of all of the insane happenings lately.

She learned that the city of Chicago, where they now were, was big, but compared to the rest of the world, it was barely large at all. Sam did something on the computer, and a picture of a map of the country came up on the looking glass. Glinda was amazed and had asked if Sam had any magical powers. Sam just laughed and explained that no one that she knew of had any real magic here. That there were lots of stories, but, until Elphie'd come along, never any proof that magic existed.

On the map, Sam showed Glinda where Chicago was, and then where Kansas was. Then she brought up pictures of several cities in Kansas, and farms, and even people. Glinda was disappointed.

Chicago seemed much more impressive.

When she got back from her little tantrum, Glinda would ask Elphie if they could stay in Chicago. After all, Sammy had offered them a place to stay and it looked like Kansas was a bust and they couldn't go back to Oz…

Switching tracks from that unpleasant train of thought, Glinda pushed her chair away from the computer table and stood up, hoping to find Sammy. Samantha was just at the other side of the room, reorganizing her bookshelf after some of the books had fallen amongst all of the wind and broken glass. Glinda walked over to her.

"Sammy, what's up?" Glinda asked with a smile, using some of her newly learned outside-of-Oz slang.

"I am looking… for… a book," Sam said distractedly, shuffling books around on the shelf.

Glinda looked them over, unable to read any of the titles. "Did you read all of these?"

"Haha. No, my Mom gave them to me. These are all her favourites." Sam handed her a book with a picture of a young boy and a man with dark skin riding a raft on the cover. "You wanna read one?"

"No, thank you," Glinda said examining the cover with a grimace. "I don't think we have the same written language."

Samantha laughed. "Weird." Then her hand lashed out at a fairly thin book. "Found it!"

----------

Elphaba flew faster than she'd ever flown. She had at first blindly fled that strange woman's home, leaving Glinda behind to pick up the pieces. But she needed a plan. She began circling the building she'd woken up in. This city was indeed impressive, but she couldn't have cared less at the moment. Every lap around the building was wider than the last, giving her the perfect way to scan the entire city, without getting lost, and losing Glinda, too.

She didn't think she would be able to handle being completely alone.

She was high in the air, and the oxygen was getting thin. Sheer force of will, brought on by sudden and gut-wrenching desperation, was keeping her going; keeping her from blacking out.

After a while, feeling dangerously light-headed, she lowered her altitude and speed, still moving, but slow enough where she could catch her breath.

Then she spotted the remains of her cabin on the side of a road, and tipped the nose of the coat rack down, descending as quickly as she could.

----------

Fiyero sat slumped against the brick wall of one of the tall buildings. Galinda, on his lap, was amusing herself by pulling all of the straw out of her Daddy's chest. Fiyero made no move to stop her, though. After all, his foolishness had left him broken hearted, so why shouldn't his chest cave in?

He'd forgotten to ask the old couple the meaning of his note.

_Plink._

He jerked his head up to look at the person who'd tossed a coin at him, to be met with another few copper tokens thrown at his feet.

It must have been some sort of charity for the destitute and, he supposed, he fell into that category.

Fiyero looked around, taking in information and observing the people as they hurried about. He saw most people walking with a definite stride, knowing exactly where to go, as well as people aimlessly strolling from place to place, obviously newcomers to this city as he was. And the tiktok "cars" on the roads were packed in tight, barely moving as the sun began to set in the west.

He constantly heard music here, much like in Oz, but there were often two of more groups of performers playing differing styles at the same time. Back in Oz, there wasn't a band on every corner; it was more of an ambient score to everyday life. And here he saw dancers and actors performing for whatever scraps onlookers would grant them.

Across the street from him, he saw an unusually tall woman of stark white, with serpents in her hair, standing nearly as still as a marble stature, though Fiyero had seen her in a different pose just a moment ago. He smiled slightly, remembering how he'd toyed with that Dorothy girl when they'd first met, and walked over to the snake-haired woman.

"Excuse me, Miss," he addressed her directly, "I couldn't help but notice you're white as the sheet you're dressed in."

He got no response.

Clearing his throat, he continued, "Well, uh, I was wondering where there might be other women with… unusual physical traits."

Still, the woman would not answer him.

"Ma'am, please," Fiyero was growing frustrated. "I really need to know where there are other unique people such as ourselves!"

When she remained silent, Fiyero was about to start yelling, but stopped when a spectator to their rather one-sided conversation dropped a bill into a tray on the ground in front of her. The woman bowed mutely, in artistic thanks, then turned ever so slightly towards Fiyero, waving her arms to the south, before stopping still as a statue once again.

Fiyero thanked her and ran as quickly as his unstable legs could carry him, considering he was holding an infant in his also unstable arms.

And though he didn't look back, Fiyero pitied the woman who appeared to be cursed with stony stillness unless some kind stranger gave her money.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Blame school. Honestly. 

The street performer dressed as a statue of Medusa is a real person I saw on 5th Ave. in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. There was a woman in Chicago during the summer who did the same statue bit, but she was dressed as a Victorian lady, all painted gold. I don't know why I didn't just use her. I guess Medusa was just a bit more unusual.

Ahem. Thanks to all who reviewed!

Sinfulpurgatory: Yeah, a coat rack was the closest thing to Elphaba that had a remotely broom-like shape and of course she remembers the flying spell, as it was the spell that started it all.

Anonymous-cat: Thanks for reviewing! I'm glad you liked it.

Larken: She takes thing in stride, but, honestly, folks hereabouts really do. People can see just about anything, and just keep on going. I usually stop to take pictures of nifty happenings or cool street performers, though. So you can bet I'd snap a shot of a living Scarecrow and his red baby walking around!

LadyPup: Woo-hoo! Three out of three! Thank you for all the compliments, and of course I shall continue writing!

phantomsangel102: Thank you new reviewer! And thanks for putting me on your favourite author and story lists, and author and story alert lists! You are a super-fan!

The next chapter will be up on the 12th, and it might be a little shorter than this one, but with an awesome-tacular surprise.

In the meantime, review!


	12. Chapter 12

Elphaba touched down by the side of the road where tiktok beasts roamed at speeds not even the Gale Forcers' carriages could go. A large yellow tiktok beast with a serrated shovel attached at its long nose's end loomed protectively close to the wreckage of her once-home. She stood among the bushes, as her brown frock and green skin gave her the perfect earthy tones to blend in. After several moments of the thing not moving, she realized it was dormant; it must have wound down, and there was no one to wind it back up.

She would have smiled if she weren't so distraught. As it was, she walked briskly to the splintered boards and began throwing them aside, looking for some sign of her lover or her daughter. In no time, she had scattered all of the boards and chunks of wood, but found no sign of them.

Cursing loudly, she sat side-saddle on the coat rack, preparing to take off, but a ball of crumpled leather caught her eye. Sanding up and walking over, letting the coat rack fall to the ground with a clatter. She reach down and picked it up, sticking her hand inside and popping the item back into shape.

She beat it against her hip and placed it atop her head, pulling it down until it felt snug, and kicked off of the ground, into the sky, and back towards the building wherein Glinda was waiting for her.

----------

He'd slowed to a walk after only a few blocks. Galinda has started crying again. He was still hoping she hadn't soiled herself, and she really hadn't eaten much, so he reasoned she must be hungry. Fiyero made his way over to a large, dark man with a cart and an umbrella; a street vendor.

"Hello, sir," Fiyero began, "I was just wondering--."

"Whatchoo want, man?" the vendor asked, impatiently but not quite impolitely.

"Uhhh," Fiyero stuttered, trying to read the small menu, but understanding none of it. "I can't… really read your menu."

The man furrowed his brow and smirked a little. "It's _in_ English. What's the problem?"

Fiyero raised his painted-on eyebrows. "Well, I'm sorry, but I can only read Ozian and some Ancient Ozian."

"So you can't even read?"

"Not this language," Fiyero stated, dejectedly. Then he nodded down to his daughter. "Look, she's hungry, and I don't have much money…"

The man, intimidating as he was, tilted his head back and looked Fiyero over. Then his eyes stopped on Galinda in his arms. "That your baby?"

Fiyero nodded, and the man sighed.

"How old is she? She got any teeth in yet?"

Fiyero nodded. "She four months old with four teeth."

"You know what?" the man asked, opening the lid to his cart and reaching deep inside with a pair of tongs. "I'm a father myself. My wife just had our second two months ago, an' I know it's tough." He pulled the tongs out and gripped inside were two… tubes of meat? "When they get their teeth in, they practically live offa milk, cheerios, and hotdogs."

As the man put each one in its own bun, Fiyero got the distinct impression that the man was referring to the meat tubes with the name "hotdog."

"Here," he said with a kind smile as he handed Fiyero two hotdogs wrapped in paper, "You can eat the bread."

Fiyero raised his eyebrows at the questionable meal and thanked the man. Stepping off to the side, he waited a moment for them to cool down, then handed one of the meat tubes, no bun, to his baby girl.

She must have loved it, because soon Fiyero had to de-bun the second one.

----------

Glinda stared at the cover, eyes wide at the familiarity of the people drawn on it. "What is this?"

" 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,' " Sam smirked. "I've never read it, but it's one of my mom's favourites."

Glinda "humph"-ed at the words "Wonderful Wizard."

"What's wrong?" Sam asked, not getting the sudden apathetic attitude.

"Nothing," Glinda said flippantly.

"This is supposed to be what happened the first time Dorothy came to Oz."

Glinda paled. "She comes back?"

"In the books, yeah. There're, like, forty original Oz books, all written by this same guy." Samantha read the author's name off of the cover. "L. Frank Baum."

"Hm. Sounds like 'El-Pha-Ba' to me." Glinda mused, thumbing through the book. "This looks long," she nearly whined.

Sam scrutinized the book after taking it from Glinda. "Well, it's not that long, but I don't think I have the patience to read the whole thing to someone older than me."

"Well, what do we do, then?" Glinda asked, a tad annoyed. "I'm very curious about this whole thing."

Sam thought it over for a moment. "Well, either we do just that. OR, we do the truly studious thing to do."

"And what's that," Glinda asked.

Sam smiled. "Rent the movie."

* * *

A/N: I actually posted on the day I said I would! ... At least in Chicago time.

Anywho, I promised an awesome surprise this chapter, so here it is (at least _I_ think it's awesome):

http/out-of-oz. 

that's not showing up (cuz I know has trouble with these things for some reason), it's:

out-of-ozDOTtripodDOTcom

Lemme know what you think! And there was a ginormous drop in reviews last chapter. Let's remedy that, shall we?


	13. Chapter 13

With each step, Glinda shifted her thighs uncomfortably. Sam had insisted that Glinda change into something more "normal" before going to a place called Tower Records to "rent a movie." Glinda had frowned at the thought; for one thing the apparent style here was very foreign, and very bland, and Glinda the-- Glinda Upland always liked to make a statement (that statement being, "Look at me and how beautiful I am and then wallow in the self pity caused by the knowledge that you could never hope to live up to my status in the world."). For another thing, the name Tower Records sounded suspiciously like a library to her.

And for another, Sam's black trousers were a tad too tight. And the long-sleeved shirt she wore was awfully tight around the chest.

So now, as she and Sam walked down to their destination, Glinda marveled at all of the differences from Oz. Truly this was a great city, but now, seeing it up close, she could see how amazing it all really was. In the windows of every shop and restaurant they passed, Glinda could see stores loaded with mass-produced merchandise, clothing that must have been tailored by master artisans (also mass-produced), restaurants full of people of all ethnicities dining together, and more of those amazing tiktok looking glass things.

And as they walked, even though she'd considered herself above such insecurities as of late, Glinda couldn't help but feel upset that no one they walked past knew who she was. No one bowed or curtsied, no one greeted her; hell, some folks were down right rude to her. And a whole lot of them were preoccupied with talking to the little boxes they held to their ears.

"What are those? And why are the people holding them talking to themselves?" Glinda asked Sam, rushing up to catch her by the shoulder.

Sam stopped a moment and dug into her jean pockets. She pulled out a small box of her own, but hers flipped open and lit up in front of Glinda's eyes. "It's called a cell phone. Phones in general let you talk to anyone else, anywhere in the world, so long as they have a phone of their own."

"Ooh," Glinda cooed, eyeballing her newest discovery. "Can I touch it."

Sam shrugged. "Yeah. Go for it."

Glinda smiled brightly, childishly, and took the phone from Sam. Gingerly turning it over at first, then flipping it open with reckless abandon, she pressed a random sequence of buttons and confidently yet playfully held it up to her ear, as she had seen passers-by doing.

After a moment, she heard a buzzing voice coming from the machine. "Hello?"

Sam, who had been standing by, arms crossed in indifference, suddenly lifted her head and leaned over to watch Glinda.

"Bon-ju-er? What does that mean?" Glinda turned to her new acquaintance. "Sammy, is that more slang or--?"

Sam snatched the phone out of Glinda's hand and snapped the phone shut. She was wide-eyed and panting. "Sonuvabitch!" She flipped the phone back open and checked her call log. "Oh, man. You made an over-seas call, and I don't have long-distance coverage." She turned to glare at the blonde.

Glinda wore the expression of a three year old who knows he's done something wrong, doesn't know what, but knows that punishment is imminent. "Sorry?"

Sam took a breath and held it for a moment before deflating with a sigh. "You don't even know you did anything wrong. Okay," she breathed in again, deeply, "Phone service isn't some kinda magic. It costs money, and I've got enough saved up where I can help you and your friends get on your feet, but not if you run all my bills up or break all of my stuff. As it is, I'm sure I'm not getting that coat rack back."

Glinda wanted to protest that she was sure Elphaba'd bring it back once she'd cooled down, but instead cast her eyes to the floor in a gesture of shame and understanding.

She realized now she had been acting childish. It was just nice to have a distraction from all of the chaos. And a fascinating distraction at that. She couldn't help it. Who could?

Sam pocketed the phone and started walking again. Glinda followed close behind, still walking with her thighs tight in discomfort. Sam looked back at her and raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe tomorrow we'll go shopping for clothes." After a moment of thought, she added, "For Elphaba, too, if she's back at the apartment by the morning."

They entered through the parking lot entrance, walking past a restaurant in the basement of the building and stepped into the elevator.

Glinda squirmed waiting in the small box to stop again. She had become claustrophobic when they rode down in the elevator in Sam's apartment, wondering why they were standing in a box instead of going to "get a movie." Sam had nearly exploded trying to calm her down and explain to her what exactly an elevator does.

After only a few moments, though the elevator opened up and they were on a different floor. Sam stepped out normally, calmly, but Glinda took one step out and stopped. This place was bright, full of neon colours and lit signs, yellow walls and thousands of items in attractive packaging lining the walls and filling bins in organized rows.

When the elevator door dinged and shut again, Glinda snapped out of her reverie and took quick, short footsteps to catch up to Sam.

Together they walked into another section of the store. Sam took a few long strides, knowing exactly where to go, and perused a shelf of thin boxes. Then she pulled one out and handed it to Glinda to look over.

Glinda sneered at the image. "Dorothy Gale was _not_ this pretty." She then smiled. "And, boy, do Fiyero and Boq look stupid."

"Who?"

Glinda looked up. "Fiyero is the Scarecrow, and I hate him." She moved her finger on the cover. "Boq is the Tinman, and I hate him."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Did they follow you here, too?"

"Well, yes. Fiyero," Glinda said matter-of-factly. "He is Elphie's lover, after all."

"The Witch and the Scarecrow," Sam said under her breath. She_ never_ would have guessed that.

Glinda was about to say something, when suddenly base-heavy, soulful music started playing from somewhere above her. "Ooh. That's beautiful."

Sam glanced sidelong at her. "You want me to buy it?"

"You mean hire a band?" Glinda asked, confused about how they could possibly "buy" the song.

Sam sighed and rented the movie at the cashier's counter, then asked what was playing overhead.

With her answer, Sam went over to the Jazz section and picked out a Billie Holiday compilation set.

"Shit." All they had were CDs, and, "I don't have a working CD player."

She looked over to Glinda, prepared to explain the situation, but was met with pleading puppy-dog eyes.

"Please?"

Sam sighed.

----------

An hour later, Sam let Glinda open the door to the apartment with her newly made keys, as she was preoccupied with staggering in, burdened with the weight of Glinda's new CD and DVD collection, personal CD player, boombox, magazines, posters, and whatever else she had asked Sam for.

That woman had a way to manipulate people into doing her bidding.

She dropped the bags just into the apartment and kept walking, her stride quicker now that she wasn't weighed down, but quickly bumped into Glinda, who had abruptly stopped walking.

"Hey. Glinda. What gives?"

Glinda moved forward and knelt down, her decrease in height allowing Sam to see what had made her stop.

Elphaba sat there, on the floor, looking up from thumbing through the copy of "the Wonderful Wizard of Oz" Sam had left discarded on the living room table. She had been looking at Glinda, confused but concerned, but then turned her eyes to Sam, accusing once again.

"Where did you get this?"

Sam scoffed. "Oh, please. You're so paranoid, Elphaba. You can't read English. It's not the same as…"

"Ozian," Glinda supplied.

"Right." Sam nodded her head. "Do you even know what that is?"

"Of course I do," Elphaba said, getting to her feet. She held the book firmly but waved it in Sam's face.

"The Grimmerie."

* * *

A/N: Okay, wow. Sorry about the long wait. Really. But midterms are coming up, so, naturally, I'm writing this so I can put off studying.

Now for some review responses:

Blufair: Thanks for the compliments on the comic and the story. Don't worry about all of your questions. It will all be addressed in two or three chapters, after they've actually gotten around to watching the movie or reading the book. I've thought of it all because I hate plot holes. So, yeah, it'll all be explained.

MamaJeanie & reefer7: Thanks!

Anonymous-Cat: Yeah, many questions, but all with answers on the way… So stay tuned!

eLpHaBaFaBaLaElPhIeFaE: Hey! I read your last chapter! Finally, you beat me! How does it feel? The triumph of getting to goad me into writing my next chapter. Your story actually prompted me to finish this chapter. I had it almost done, except for the last scene. So… Thank you. Yeah.

Phantomsangel102: The surprise was that I'm making the story into a comic. The link can be found on my author bio info page thing. And thanks for reviewing.

Sinfulpurgatory: Sorry. I'm not going to write in the whole movie. I think I'll leave off next chapter with them about to watch it, and then begin the next chapter with their reactions, or fill in the time that they're actually watching it with a Fiyero/Galinda moment.

So, yeah, thanks to all of my reviewers, past and present. And keep reviewing. It keeps me going through the schoolyear.

Later, all!


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Glinda's eyes widened as the implications of what Elphaba had just said sunk in. Another copy of the _Grimmerie_! Of course there had to be something special about the book Sammy had shown her! It had portraits of people she knew right on the cover, after all. But Sammy said that it was her mother's favourite book! Was her mother magically inclined as well? But then, Sammy had also said that no one here knew how to really use magic. What could it mean? Just as she puffed up her chest, ready to demand to know what the meaning of all this was, Samantha spoke.

"Okay, wait a minute," she said placatingly, arms once again up in a gesture of peace. "What's a-- I don't even know what you just said." She put her hand out, asking for the book, but Elphaba brought it in closer to her chest, holding it tight out of Sam's reach.

"I don't believe that for a second," Elphaba retorted. "Sure, it's laid out differently, but the words inside are still the same." She flipped through the pages, then shut it and looked at the cover. "Plus, these drawings on the cover of Fiyero, Boq, the Lion, and," here she gagged a little, "Dorothy Gail are mighty suspicious to me."

Sam smirked, dryly. "Yeah, but you're crazy paranoid."

Elphaba's eyes narrowed in silent fury, but as she thought up a good comeback, a sudden movement by her dear friend Glinda caught her eye.

Sammy's cat, Streaky, had decided to nuzzle its head against Glinda's shins at that moment, so Glinda, in turn, decided to pick it up and give the cat a scratch behind the ears.

Elphaba caught the creature's curious, if not somewhat vacant eyes for a moment, then turned to fix a neutral stare on Sam.

"Does this Cat live with you?" At Sam's nod, Elphaba turned back to Streaky and did a little curtsy, apologizing for causing such a racket. The cat looked indifferent to Elphaba's apology, so she paused to think for a moment. She decided not to be too pessimistic, and instead to take the Cat's silence as a sign of no hard feelings. She introduced herself. "I am Elphaba Thropp, of Munchkinland. What, may I ask, is your name?"

When, again, the cat made no movement of recognition of words spoken to it, Elphaba briskly ordered Glinda to set it down. Knowing not to defy Elphaba when she got into one of her "moods," Glinda set the cat down, and it promptly strutted over to the couch and leapt onto one of the armrests before laying down, comfortably digging its nails into the fabric.

Elphaba, who had been intently watching the cat's behaviour, now turned to Sam again, this time at least trying to contain the accusation in her voice. "Why doesn't this Animal speak?"

"Excuse me?" Sam asked, brow furrowed in obvious confusion.

Glinda watched Elphaba tuck the "Grimmerie" into her belt, concerned that, now that both hands were free, violence might ensue. So she spoke up, hoping to break the tension. "What Elphie means to ask," she laid a calming hand on Sammy's shoulder, "is 'is Streaky an Animal or and Animal?'"

Sam frowned at the odd pronunciation, but didn't know the difference, and she told them so.

Fed up, Elphaba yelled, "One talks, the other doesn't!"

Considering this for a moment, as well as the fact that the green woman seemed to be one hell of an Animal Rights nut, as Glinda tried to calm her friend down. Then, she said, slowly and thoughtfully, "No animals speak here… Unless you want to count humans as animals…" At Elphaba's wide-eyed stare, she added, "But I don't think you do…"

But Elphaba was too shocked to let that last bit register. "Next they'll be kept in cages!" she shouted, scandalized by the very idea.

Sam grimaced and added, "Well, yeah, they are. In zoos."

Glinda wrinkled her nose. "What in Oz is a 'zoo?'"

"It's a place where rare and exotic animals are kept for study, protection, and… well… entertainment."

"What!" Elphaba screamed at her. Then she turned to Glinda, who had seated herself on the couch and started playing with all of her wonderful new electronics. "This place is worse off than Oz!" Elphaba started pacing. "We have to _do_ something!"

Glinda gingerly placed her CD player's headphones on her head and looked up at Samantha. "Oh, good. Now she's got another 'mission.' Thanks, Sammy," she said sarcastically.

Sam set the DVD down on the coffee table and took a step closer to Elphaba, who looked ready to mount the coat rack and jump out the window again.

"Hold on. If you really want to start some kind of Animal Rights campaign, then my advice is to try and be a little less conspicuous than a green witch flying around on a… coat rack."

Elphaba crossed her arms over her chest and asked, "And how do you propose I remain 'inconspicuous?'"

Sam's shoulders slumped a bit, not wanting to get into that right now. "I've got a few ideas, but," she picked up the DVD again and took it out of its box, "how about we watch a little… eh… _history_, first?"

Looking away, Elphaba said, "I don't need to watch some twisted, Wizardic propaganda." She turned back and pointed to herself forcefully, but remained clam, her voice even. "I was _there_. I know the _truth_." She raised her chin. "Besides, I don't have time for looking glasses when I have such and important undertaking to… undertake."

Sam shrugged and put the DVD back in its box. "Okay, then. Back to inconspicuousness, I guess." She moved over to the door to her apartment, where her purse, shoes, and some shopping bags were in a heap on the floor, and picked up the purse. After rifling through it, she made her way back over to the living room and produced a smaller pouch. "the first thing that I would recommend would be a bit of _degreenification_…"

As Sam snapped open her make-up pouch, and Glinda's head instinctively turned at the sound, Elphaba had the distinct feeling of a cornered Animal.

* * *

A/N: 

Ack! I am soooooooooo sorry about the huge delay in updating. The following is my list of excuses:

Had my tonsils out, and was out of it for about a week.

Computer died,

Dell customer support sucks,

Went to New Jersey for a wedding,

Came back; Dell's still a bunch of bastards; computer is still out of commission.

There you have it. All the truth, whether you choose to believe it or not. Anywho, now for some review responses:

Anonymous-Cat: Thanks for the compliments, and I know that this chapter doesn't really explain why "The Wonerful Wizard of Oz" is the "Grimmerie," but that'll come ina couple of chapters, along with a few familiar faces…

Mother-Trucker: I actually thought about that, maybe she gives off hypnotic vibes or something.

eLpHaBaFaBaLaElPhIeFaE: Yeah, you beat me to it. Of course, I took FOR-F&ING-EVER to update this time.

sokka.is.mine: Whoo! New reviewer! Thanks. They're not going to find Fiyero for a while. I've got too much planned for them separately… MWAHAHAHAHA!

MamaJeanie: Yeah, Glinda's changed into a harder, more sarcastic and cynical version of herself; not nearly so bubbly. But that doesn't mean she doesn't appreciate the occasional shopping spree anymore!

LadyPup: Two reviews! Whoo! I didn't forget about this story; my reasons for the delay are above. As it stands, I'm "limited" (pun soooo intended) to uploading new chapters, and even typing them, at school. The next chapter should be up in a week or so, since I've got the next few chapters planned out and even partially written out in a notebook. As for the thing about Glinda not recognizing the Grimmerie, well, the Grimmerie is written in a different language (the lost language of spells, known to us as "English"). Imagine if you were to read a book written in Japanese or Russian or Greek. They have different alphabets. You might recognize the general strokes of the characters, but that doesn't mean you have any sort of clue how to read them or would recognize them if you saw them in a different context of font. I hope that's a fairly plausible explanation!

Blufair: A little charisma _does _go a long way! It's totally true! Anywho, thanks for being the only one to take the magic ties at face value and give me the chance to explain it a little first. And that explanation is on its way in a few more chapters.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Fiyero walked down the street, a small smile playing at his lips. Galinda was finally content. Fiyero held her in his arms, and she squealed as she played with the fraying patches on his sleeves. She had eaten well, and let out a mighty belch, and would possibly take a nap after a little more playing.

Sure, Galinda was slowly pulling him apart at the seams for fun, and fairly soon she'd need to relieve herself, and he had _no _idea what to do about that, but really that was the best things'd been all day. He missed Elphie, Oz knew he needed her, but her was confident they would find each other.

He looked down at Galinda and ruffled her curly black hair with a burlap hand. Then he stopped walking and looked up at the skyscrapers. Things could be worse. He could be completely alone. And they could have landed somewhere anti-Scarecrow.

Then he stepped aside on the sidewalk and watched the normal people pass, thinking about the prejudice that Elphaba'd faced all her life, and growing apprehensive.

But she was resourceful… She'd be fine.

He remembered what she'd told him of her years on the run, and compared it to their current situation. This place was very different from Oz. There were still a lot of things that Fiyero personally didn't know about this place.

He signed and looked at the tiktoks roaming the street. He was sure she'd be fine. He'd just have to stay positive.

----------

Sam spoke to Elphaba in a calming voice as she ran the concealer-covered cosmetic sponge over her green skin.

"People might freak out a bit at a green woman… Or… Actually, they won't, they'll just stare at you a little… Unless they find out you really _are _green, in which case, Lord knows what would happen then…" She paused, putting the concealer away and uncapping her lipstick. "The point is," she continued, "you don't want to be so easily recognizable. You don't want people to describe you as 'the green woman,' and everyone knows immediately that they mean you." She put the lipstick away and then opened up the mascara and blush.

"Would you let me see her already?" Glinda said, impatiently, leaning over the armrest on the couch.

Samantha rolled her eyes. "No! First off, I want her to look naturally tan, like she's not wearing make-up at all."

"Like you?" Glinda asked, seeing the connection, but feeling as impatient as ever.

"Actually, I'm not wearing make-up at all," Samantha informed them both. "So, yeah, I guess." She traced Elphaba's lips with a fleshy pink lip-liner. "Which means you are not allowed to help." She smudged the lip-liner into the lipstick and the concealer a bit, giving her new tone a bit of realism. "It's difficult enough, already."

She applied a light powdering of blush over Elphaba's cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, for some difference in tone, and then the mascara, because Elphaba had really intense and beautiful eyes, and Sam wanted people to be drawn to them.

"Finally!" Sam smiled at Glinda's shout as she put all of the make-up back in its bag. "Lemme see!"

Sam laughed and turned Elphaba's chair around so she was facing Glinda on the couch. Immediately, Glinda's impish grin faded to an expression of amazement, and Elphaba's already unsure expression collapsed into one of total insecurity. She even squirmed in her seat, ready to bolt like she had the morning after the party at the Ozdust, all those years ago.

Then Glinda spoke.

"Elphaba… Elphie… You look amazing!"

Elphaba wasn't sure if "amazing" was a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, she rose from her seat, intending to leave the living room, but Glinda sprang up from the couch and roughly shoved Elphaba back into her seat.

"Sit down!" Glinda ordered, and Elphaba was so shocked at her friend's mood swing that she obeyed. "We're in a new place for a reason." She caught the compact Sam threw to her just then, and held it firmly, still closed in her hands. "You wanted a fresh start," she cracked the compact open a bit, "so no more running."

Glinda opened the mirror up the whole way and forced Elphaba to look at her new reflection.

After several seconds of seeing no reaction from Glinda, or from Elphaba's reflection, Sam reached over to the center of her living room table, grabbed a napkin, wadded it up, and hit Elphaba on the head with it.

Elphaba blinked at the soft impact and jerked her head up almost imperceptibly. Her eyes focused in on the different parts of her face. Her eyes, first of all, were very fetching, with longer, darker strokes making up her eyelashes. They were dark and intense, but also beautiful. Her lips looked full, but not pouty, and the shade of pink carnations. Her hair was the same brown mess it always was, but pulled back into the braid she wore in her younger days. She could see her face, all the way back to her ears, but she could not find a trace of green. There were peach, tan, pink, some brown, and black around the eyes, but there was no green.

The funny thing was, even without her trademark skin tone, she could still recognize herself.

But she didn't know what to say. This was, after all, what she'd wanted her entire life. And now that she had it, at least as far as other people knew, she really didn't know how to respond.

Glinda closed the compact, and Elphaba's eyes immediately snapped up to meet hers. "You're beautiful, Elphie." She leaned back and sat down on the armrest. "You were never ugly."

"Just green," Sam added from the other side of the living room table.

They two friends looked at her sharply for interrupting their tender, and private, moment. Sam mumbled an apology, and Elphaba caught sight of her hands. They were still green. Sam hadn't bothered to do them yet.

Finally, Elphaba breathed out an amazed "Wow," and smiled. "This is so… I don't even know. It's just incredible." She looked up at Glinda. "I'm normal."

Sam scoffed behind her. "You've got magic powers! Who wants to be_ normal_?"

Glinda smiled. "She has a point."

"But I can go outside, and not be stared at like some hideodeous freak," Elphaba told them. "That's nothing to thumb your nose at." She stood up and took a good look at Glinda. "Speaking of being stared at, what in Oz are you wearing? Is that the local fashion hereabouts?"

"Yeah," Glinda said glumly. "It's a little bland for my tastes, but Sammy here says this is what's normal." She squirmed in her borrowed black jeans. "I think I'll have to design my own clothing."

Elphaba smirked. "I think you'll have to learn to sew."

Glinda stuck her tongue out at her friend, but turned to Sammy when her startled "Oh!" caught her attention.

"Speaking of clothes," Sam said, "I think that the three of us ought to go out shopping for a new wardrobe for the two of you. I don't think my stuff will fit you all well." Then she smiled wickedly. "Which brings me to my idea on flying and remaining inconspicuous…"

Sam went to her room, then came out seconds later with a black tank-top. She tossed it to Elphaba, who blanched at seeing how skimpy it was.

"This is your idea?" Elphaba stretched the fabric and examines it from different angles and distances. "This _is_ a shirt, right?"

Sam laughed. "Yes, it's a shirt, and no, it's not my idea for flying." She corrected herself. "Not exactly, anyways." Sam stood by the doors to her balcony. "You can hex anything, right? Like, with that flying spell? It applies to anything?"

Elphaba nodded, thinking she could see where Samantha was going with this.

"Well, tomorrow, after we go shopping, I figure you can put a spell on the clothes I buy you, and then you can fly anytime, anywhere. You just take off into the sky, it'll look so cool, and that way you won't get the odd looks you normally would if you carried a broom or whatever everywhere you went."

Elphaba and Glinda glanced at each other, contemplating the idea. It sounded pretty good.

----------

Fiyero sighed. It was getting dark, and the shoppes and boutiques on the street were closing. There were no houses in sight, so he couldn't ask for someone to spare him a room for the night and, though he couldn't feel it, he was worried about Galinda catching a cold.

Just as his musings turned to thoughts of the worst possible outcome, one of the huge tiktoks on the street sped past him and down the street.

On its side, he caught a glimpse of a piece of stylized artwork featuring a woman in white… whispering into the ear of a green woman with a wide-brimmed and pointed hat!

Gathering up all the strength his considerably weak straw body could muster, Fiyero sprinted down the street, a now-crying Galinda in his arms, and dodging, knocking down, or impossibly squeezing through tight gaps between pedestrians.

He had to catch up with the driver of that tiktok!

* * *

A/N: Another chapter done! And considerably faster than the last! I think that deserves a round of reviews, don't you? Next chapter brings a surprise character with it!

eLpHaBaFaBaLaElPhIeFaE: Haha. Very funny. Anywho, thanks for continuing to review, and when_ are _you gonna get back into writing?

Mitch N. Mitchelson: Thank you, new reviewer! Yeah, Elphaba has calmed down enough to trust Sam enough to let her help them, since she's done nothing but help them so far.

Kennedy Leigh Morgan: Thanks for the compliments, and rest assured that the Grimmerie/Wonderful Wizard of Oz thing will be resolved in a couple of chapters. It's sort of how I figured it possible to bring Glinda and Elphie to our world in the present day, instead of in the early 1900s. All will be explained!

Anonymous-Cat: I'm still having trouble with Dell's customer support doofs, and all the files are on my laptop, so the comic is on hiatus until further notice. Other than that, I laughed out loud at your pun in your last review, nerd that I am. I love a good bad pun.

blufair: Thanks for the review, and the condolences for my laptop.

sokka.is.mine: Whatever. Thanks for reviewing, anyways.

Sinfulpurgatory: Degreenification!

LadyPup: Maybe I _am_ Glinda. Didja ever think of that?


	16. Chapter 16

Fiyero ran rather clumsily down the street after the bus with the drawing of a green witch and a white witch plastered on its side. He ran almost recklessly, practically shoving pedestrians out of his way, but lost the thing when it turned a corner after a few blocks.

Sighing, he bounced baby Galinda into a position higher up on his arms and kept walking in that direction, planning to turn on the same street as the tiktok, in hopes that it had stopped to make berth just after its turn.

When he reached the corner and turned right, he did not see the tiktok beast he had been chasing, but rather scores of even larger copies of the drawing he had been… well… _drawn_ to in the first place.

Fiyero smiled in joy and relief as he strode to what appeared to be the nexus of it all; a large building with a brilliant gold and red vertical sign and a grand marquis, under which throngs of people could be seen exiting and chatting animatedly.

Fiyero immediately decided to get closer so he could hear what they were saying.

"--'Good Deed' was so incredible! It was just so powerful and--"

"Bah, the New York company is waaay better…"

"I can't buh-LEEVE Fiyero turned out to be the Scarecrow. What a twist! 'Cause, y'know, there always seemed to be some kinda past between him and the Wicked Witch in the movie."

Someone caught sight of him lurking on the outskirts of the crowd; a young girl of twelve or so. "Oh, my Gosh! What a great costume!" She tugged on her mother's sleeve. "Mom, look!"

Her mother turned to look at Fiyero. "Oh, my. That is impressive. Are you a part of the show?"

Fiyero shook his head. "Uhhh… No."

"Well, then you must be one heck of a fan." She smiled. "Have you got your playbill from the show?"

Fiyero looked uncertain again. "Yes?"

"Well, we're going around to the stage entrance to get Elphaba's autograph, and--."

Fiyero cut her off. "You're going to_ see _my Elphie?" he asked, getting excited.

The woman laughed at his excitement, and her daughter answered. "Yeah! And we're gonna see Glinda, too!"

Fiyero felt his spirits rise as he followed after the mother and daughter, around the building, to an unassuming door facing away from the commotion in front of the theatre. After waiting a while, a young man walked out, and a few of the people waiting accosted him, asking him to sign the small pamphlets they held. Then, a few more people walked out. When an older man with white hair exited, everyone there bombarded him with requests for autographs. Following him, a woman with straight brown hair falling just below her shoulders was also asked for hers.

Finally, a tall, thin woman in her… Fiyero guessed mid-thirties walked out, and the crowd of people became significantly more excited.

"Elphaba, can I have your autograph?" the girl Fiyero had spoken with earlier asked, making his head snap to take a good look at her.

True, she had a similar physique, but, she wasn't his Elphaba. "You're not my Elphie." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Where is she?"

The imposter, obviously not seeing how upset he was, jokingly said, "Oh, you might wanna try back in there!" and gestured to the door behind her.

When the next person exited, a skinny young blonde thing, Fiyero pushed past them, careful to mind Galinda's head, and got into the building behind himself, feeling pride and exhilaration at his ability to make it inside.

Then someone coughed. Fiyero turned to see a short-ish man in his early forties looking at him strangely.

"Can I help you?"

Fiyero sheepishly raised a hand and scratched his head. "My apologies. I just need to find my love, and I'll be on my way…"

He trailed off at the stare the man was giving him, then realized that he had been scratching his head from the inside, having inserted his hand into his cranium through a broken seam.

"Oh, ha." He removed his hand. "I'm sorry, that's a bad habbit; Elphie hates it when I do that."

The short-ish man promptly fainted.

----------

The next morning, Sam woke up to find Elphaba standing in the kitchen, looking down at the stovetop in a mixture of confusion and contemplation.

"Damn, you get up early." Sam's voice made Elphaba jump.

Elphaba then tried to regain her composure and shrugged in fake indifference. "I get up with the sun. Always have." Then she looked back around at the kitchenette. "I was going to thank you by making breakfast, but I haven't the foggiest of how I'd accomplish that."

Sam laughed. "Well, that makes sense." She moved to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs, a packet of bacon, and a stick of butter, then crouch to open a low cabinet and remove a pan. She placed the pan on the stove, then put the eggs, bacon, and butter on the counter next to the stove. As she unwrapped them, she pointed them out. "Eggs. Bacon. Butter."

"Do those eggs come from a Turkey, a Hawk, or are they vine-grown?" Elphaba asked as she daintily picked one up.

"Uhhh… Chicken eggs," came the confused response.

Elphaba carefully put the egg back into the carton and warily closed it. "Oh. I was confused because Chicken eggs come out brown in Oz." She handed the carton back to Sam. "And I'm a vegetarian besides. You make sure those eggs get fertilized." She added sternly. "And I'm assuming bacon still comes from Pigs hereabouts?"

Sam nodded, but then felt the need to clarify a few things. "But chicken eggs come out brown here, too. In fact, that's part of the reason why I really _can't_ make sure that they get fertilized; they've already been bleached, and they've been in that refrigerator much too long to even have a chance of being viable by now." She broke the news as gently as she could, knowing how Elphaba tended to blow up at bad news, but inwardly was amazed that her father's farm-boy heritage finally came in handy for something.

Elphaba's face fell. "That's disgusting."

"I know," Sam said, sympathetically. "Personally, if I didn't need the protein in my diet, I would never eat eggs. I mean, if you think about it, it's a chicken's period." She gave a shudder at the realization.

"A chicken's what?" came a drowsy voice from the bedroom. Sam had let the old friends share the bedroom; she opted to take the couch.

Sam smiled cheerily. "Never mind." She discreetly put the eggs and bacon back in the 'fridge.

Elphaba marveled at the contraption. "It's so cold in there! How do you do it? What is that?"

Glinda gasped in delight. "Oh, my Goodness!" She started dancing around, showing some of her old, immature self to Elphaba's unvoiced relief. "I know something you don't know! I know something you don't know!"

Elphaba chuckled. "Well it's about time."

Glinda stopped dancing around in Sam's over-sized pajama pants and turned to scowl at Elphaba. "You just _have _to burst my bubble, don't you, Elphie?" Then she snorted. "Bubble. Oh, I made a joke and didn't even know it…" She laughed lightly.

Sam, amused at their little exchange, and glad to see that Elphaba was feeling at least comfortable enough to chat amicably in her presence, took several vegetables out of the refrigerator, including one red pepper and one green one.

Sam then took out some rice from a high shelf and a pot from a low cupboard. "Taking into account the feelings and tastes of my new two boarders," Glinda and Elphaba stared at her blankly, "That means you two," she took the pot to the sink, but didn't fill it yet, "I think _I'll _cook this morning's breakfast."

Elphaba cast her a worried look.

"Completely meat-free." Sam held up her arm, as if swearing an oath. "I promise."

At that, Elphaba relaxed, as Glinda bounded over to the counter. She picked up one of the peppers and examined it, as if hoping to jog an old memory.

"Oh!" She perked up. "That's right! I've seen these in Munchkinland before." She scooted past Sam in the area between her and the refrigerator. "Here, let me help you set the table, Sammy." Glinda moved to the sink and examined it. "This _is_ a water spigot, isn't it?"

Sam nodded.

Glinda smiled and squared her shoulders before cupping her hands around the pepper, pressing both of her thumbs down onto the stem of the vegetable, popping the stem and all of its seeds together into the pepper, then pulling the whole, connected piece out with her right index finger and thumb. Then she examined the faucet, found the cold water, turned it on, filled the pepper up almost to the brim, and promptly took a sip.

"Ta-da!"

Glinda had been modeling her fine work in a show of pride and unbearable cuteness, when the sound of two sets of stifled laughter caused her to open her eyes and see what was the matter.

At her confused expression, Elphaba began to laugh more openly. "In all my childhood there, I never saw anyone do that with a pepper." She composed herself, "Mostly, we just_ ate _them."

Sam smiled sympathetically, even though she'd also been laughing a moment ago. "You do have to admit, though, that that is a good idea." She took the red pepper and copied Glinda's cup-making movements. "I'm totally keeping this in mind for when I run out of clean cups…"

Sam pulled another pepper out of the 'fridge. "Make another one, Glinda." She filled the pot with water and turned the burners under it and the pan on. "Elphaba, you rifle through the refrigerato—that cold door thing behind me, and see if we can't weave some spinach together or something to make plates." Sam got a slightly maniacal gleam in her eyes. "If this works, I may never have to do the dishes again!"

And soon, Elphaba and Glinda were sitting at the table with a mountain of vegetables in front of them, a pad of paper, and a pen, arguing over weaving or frying a plate together.

… And possible making stuffed vegetables the new substitute for bowls altogether.

* * *

A/N: Ack! Sorry about the delay, but with finals, then holidays, then dealing with a broken computer that I've had to get fixed THREE times, as well as losing my bloody outline, and having to wing it from where I remember… Well, it takes a while.

So, yeah, no review responses today. I just wrote this chapter, guys… I'm spent.


	17. Chapter 17

After breakfast, Sam made good on her word, having taken them on an early morning shopping spree. Elphaba had settled on a rather meager selection of black long-sleeved shirts, a denim jacket, three pairs of blue jeans, a couple of nice sweaters, and some amusing t-shirts. Meager, that is, compared to the two dozen or so shopping bags that Sam was carrying for Glinda, since, after all, having led a life of luxury to that point, there was no way she'd be able to muster the upper body strength to lift _all those_.

As it was, Glinda wound up carrying a two small grocery bags, filled with items they intended to use in their ongoing vegetable china experiment.

The entire morning, Elphaba was wearing a smile that refused to leaver her noticeably (to those who knew her) degreenified face. Where Glinda was a tad upset by the masses failure to gawk at her in all her majesty, Elphaba was perfectly content to be, for the first time ever, one of the crowd.

Sam walked them back to her Lincoln Park apartment through OZ Park, a sizable recreational park that was named in 1976 for L. Frank Baum, author of the "Oz" books, who lived a little west of the park.

As they passed by the monument at the head of the park, a slightly off-beat and 9-foot-tall statue of the Tin Man, a most peculiar sound stopped Glinda in her tracks.

"--linna?"

Glinda whipped her head around, wondering at where that had come from. It sounded familiar, a voice she couldn't place, but she couldn't imagine where it had come from.

"Did you two hear that?" she asked Elphaba and Sam conspiratorially.

"No--" Elphaba began.

"linna!" The urgent but weak voice sounded.

Glinda jumped and performed a mid-air 360 in her shock. "There it is again."

After a moment of the two old friends looking about for the culprit, Sam shrugged the shopping bags off of her shoulders and hands, and scratched behind an ear.

"No way…" she murmured as she made her way to the base of the statue.

Glinda and Elphaba made their respective ways over back around to the front of the statue, boggling at the sight of their benefactor and new friend scaling the giant statue.

"What in the world are you doing?" Elphaba asked her.

Sam shrugged, wordlessly continuing her ascent.

Glinda frowned prettily. "I hope you don't mean to imply that that sound is coming from that monstrosity!"

"--Ey!" the mysterious voice barked out.

Sam smiled impishly at Glinda and Elphaba's shocked expressions, then gestured to he grocery bags. "Glinda, gimme the Pam." At Glinda's blank look, she elaborated. "The yellow tin can with the red letters and red cap… The cooking spray."

Glinda rummaged around in one of the bags she was still holding, then handed it to Elphaba. Getting the hint that Glinda needed her to reach up and give it to Sam (as Glinda was too short), she took two brisk steps up to the base of the statue and stretched her arm out above her as far as she could.

Sam, who was by now sitting on the statue's shoulders, reached downward, taking the can and nodding her thanks. She shook the can and sprayed the giant Tin Man sculpture around its jaw.

The trio waited.

After a moment, the telltale sounds of creaking, straining, and groaning metal rang through the (luckily) abandoned park.

"Ahhhhhh…" a relieved Tin Man said, "That's _much _better…"

* * *

A/N: Boq is back! And how exactly he got to Chicago and became 9 ft. tall will be explained sometime next chapter or so. this one was a shortie, but it's really meant as a transitional piece...

First off, to all who asked, the vegetable dinner-ware thing is something that I actually do fairly often. The pepper cups are awesome, but the plates are only used in the most dire of straights, as they are immensely difficult to make (weaving pasta and then frying it… not the easiest or healthiest solution). There's no better meal than the one you cook yourself, and then don't have to do the dishes for.

Second: let it be known that Fiyero's reaction to Anna Gasteyer (who plays Elphie here in Chicago) was very much a reflection of my own feelings. Fiyero tells her "You're not Elphie" or something to that extent, and, to me, Ms. Gasteyer is not the best choice to be our belting green beauty.

Anywho, time for reviewer responses!

Sinful Purgatory: Hey, thanks for the review! I was thinking about them using bread bowls, but Glinda's gonna be trying to get her figure back soon. Not that she was particularly heavyset, but she certainly is beginning to think so…

Anonymous-Cat: The peppers thing Glinda _thinks _she saw in Munchkinland once, but, really, it's just something her pink and fluffy widdle mind cooked up on its own. As for her secret, I think you were referring to her saying "I know something you don't know," and that was in regards to her knowing a bit about technology in our world, whereas Elphaba has yet to really learn anything.

blufair: Really? Aw, damn. I totally thought that all chickens laid brown eggs and that they just got bleached before being put in the supermarket. Oh, well. I have a question for you now, though: Why in the hell do you know all that in such detail:-P

LadyPup: Yeah, there will be much ducking of ushers and security guards on Fiyero's part. He's going to become something of a Phantom of the Ford Centre… MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ahem. To every one else, thanks always for the reviews, and to eLpHaBaFaBaLaElPhIeFaE, damned straight I'm winning!

Don't forget to review! They totally get me back on track.


	18. Chapter 18

"Holy shit."

Sam couldn't help but laugh as she said those two words. Sure, this was unbelievable, but really this was just another link in a chain of crazy things that'd been happening to her as of late.

Glinda narrowed her eyes and steps up to the base of the giant statue. "Why-- How--?"

Seeing how flummoxed Glinda was (whether it was out of disbelief or rage), Elphaba stared at the Tin Man, eyebrows raised, but keeping calm. "Boq… How did you get here?"

Boq stared at Elphaba, no hint of recognition flashing in his eyes. "Have we met?"

For a moment, Elphaba was taken aback, then quickly regained her composure, but fell silent, not wanting the truth to come out just yet. Instead, she reached up to help Sam down from her perch atop her old friend, turned statue.

"You're not going to oil all of his joints?" Elphaba asked her. "We're simply going to leave him there?"

Sam was about to answer, but Glinda beat her to it. "Of course we're leaving him here! We should leave him here to rot-- uh, _rust _forever for how he's acted!" She moved to kick the base of the statue, but a dull throb from her still-injured wrist had her thinking better.

"Actually," Sam said, putting a hand on Glinda's shoulder. "We are going to help him," she turned to look at Glinda, "But we're going to have to come back after dark. We'll be back here tonight to oil all of your joints and… I guess, somehow smuggle you into my building." She gave Boq's immobile form a thoughtful look. "Hm. We might actually have to take you apart and bring you in piece by piece."

Boq's eyes widened with a squeak. "Oh, please don't." Then he sobered. "Wait. Tonight? I have to wait even longer?"

Sam frowned. "How long have you been here?"

"Long enough for Disco, afros, and bell bottoms to go out of style, and then come back again." He sighed at Sam's unimpressed look. "Thirty years this Spring."

"I'd say that can't be right," Sam muttered, "But your knowledge of 70s trends and their coming back is pretty convincing…" After a moment of contemplation, Sam looked up again. "Look, if you've waited here, immobile and silent for three decades, about 7 more hours oughta be a cakewalk, right?" She flashed him a smile, as Glinda continued to scowl at him, and turned back towards her apartment.

Glinda "humphed" and turned to follow her almost immediately, but Elphaba gave a lingering look, wondering just what he would do once he figured out who she really was… Did her new skin tone really make her look that different?

----------

As the trio made their way back into the apartment, Sam kicked her shoes off and went straight for the refrigerator, to pour herself a tall glass of iced tea. While she was preparing glasses for her new roommates, Glinda was flipping through the channels on the TV.

Elphaba, entranced, sat down beside her. After a few moments of staring at the glowing screen, she turned back towards Sam, who was approaching them with glasses of tea. "And you're sure this is all science? No witchcraft about it?"

Sam laughed. "Yeah. In fact, I don't even think witchcraft exists in this world. At least, not any kind of real, effective magic or anything." She shrugged. "It's… just science."

Elphaba nodded, turning back around to look at the screen. "Your world is much more advanced than the clockwork machines in Oz ever were…"

Suddenly, Glinda gasped, also staring at the screen.

"What--?" Elphaba squinted at the screen.

Mildly concerned, Sam looked to the TV screen, but didn't understand what the problem was with what she was seeing. Depicted on the screen was the evening news broadcast, wherein the local anchor was interviewing the curator of the Field Museum, who was talking about the newest exhibit opening up. The curator had a colleague with her; an older woman, at least in her eighties, was very well-carried and demure, even regal.

"—couldn't possibly take all of the credit for the restoration of these beautiful pieces. Why without my colleague's help-- we've been working for so many years together-- I would never have been able to establish such a complete and in-depth understanding of the clothes and make-up of Renaissance and classical noble women," the curator gushed over the decrepit old woman.

Plastic smile plastered on her face, the field anchor held his microphone firmly under his chin. "And your colleague… I'm sorry, I don't know… I'm not familiar with your work."

The curator opened her mouth to speak again, but the old woman moved to speak instead. "I used to be the dean of a prestigious university in a faraway land, where I didn't just study these fashions, but rather lived my life according to them…" Her face crinkled into a smile. "And as for my name, it's Heraldine. Heraldine Morrible."

Back in Sam's apartment, Glinda's posture straightened to a rigid position, and Elphaba gasped, pointing a shaky finger at the screen. "I knew she looked familiar!" she said venomously.

"But how is she here?" Glinda wondered aloud. "And so much older…"

Elphaba frowned. "I think Boq may know something about this…"

"Wait, hold on. What's the problem? Who is the old bat?" Sam asked, confused by their reactions. "Oh. Is she from Oz, too?"

"Yes," Elphaba said through gritted teeth. "She is one of the people majorly responsible for ruining my young adult life."

"Ouch. Bet you wish she was dead, huh?" Sam asked with a wry smile.

Elphaba pursed her lips together. "Well… Not in so many words…"

"Well, I hate her," Glinda piped up. "You know, she made me cry on a number of occasions."

Elphaba and Sam stared at her for a moment… Before Sam turned back to Elphaba.

"So, how do you figure she got here?"

"I don't know," Elphaba scowled. "What time is it?"

Confused, Sam checked the digital display on her cell phone. "Almost 3."

"Is it dark yet?"

"No, we've got a good three or four hours before sunset," Sam said, getting the hint.

Elphaba leaned over to Glinda. "What's an 'hour'?"

"Three thousand, six hundred clock tiks." Glinda leaned back in her seat. "So in about 10,800 of 'em, Boq is going to have some explaining to do."

"Well then," Sam sashayed over to the discarded DVD on the table, "We've got some time to kill until then."

Sam couldn't help but smile at the annoyed-yet-anxious looks on her roommates' faces.

* * *

A/N: Ack! That was a long time for an update! This semester was tough, and that's in addition to two of my plays being put on... So, as always, thanks for reading, everybody! Keep up with the reviews, as they totally motivate me to keep writing instead of doing schoolwork or focusing on my job! Yay, Sloth! 


	19. Chapter 19

The sun disappeared soon enough, and night fell over the city. Those people strolling through the park abandoned it in favour of going home, or perhaps to a restaurant before the chill in the night air got to them. The park was empty save for three shifty figures, one of whom was grousing with extreme fervor.

"Wizardic slander, that's what it is! And I'm too understand nearly everyone in this world would count me a pariah, too, now?" Elphaba trudged along behind Glinda and Sam, the former of whom looked nothing more than bored.

"Do I really have to be here?" Glinda said in hushed tones, leaning over to Sam.

Sam rolled her eyes. "I know there's some sort of hatred you have for this guy, but I really could use all the help I can get to bring him up to the apartment."

"Why do we even have to let him loose from there…"

"And I tell you those Munchkins were creepy! Munchkins aren't all that short! I'm a Munchkinlander, for Oz's sake!" Elphaba raged on in the background.

"Can you calm her down?" Sam asked Glinda over Elphaba's tirade.

Glinda scoffed. "No one can calm her down…"

"Well, try," Sam let the bag of tools slide off of her shoulder to hit the ground with an assortment of metal clangs. "'Cause we're here."

----------

Fiyero sat curled up in the orchestra pit. The lights had been off in what he had deduced to be a theatre for some time now, and Galinda was happily dozing. With all of the new surroundings and items she had seen, it had taken a while to get the curious baby to ignore them in favour of sleep, but he had managed, and now he simply lay there, pondering the fate of his lady love, and also, if he managed to care, her best friend.

His musings were interrupted after… how many hours, when a lone man, middle aged and sort of pudgy by the look of him, entered the theatre through the rear door, a strange beam of light coming from his hand and illuminating the stage proper.

Fiyero huddled into a corner, covering Galinda with one arm and trying desperately not to wake her. He needed to keep them both hidden, but also desperately wanted to see what was going on, so that he may learn the secrets of this place that knew of his Elphie.

So, ever-carefully, and his resolve firmed, Fiyero stood to his wobbly feet, holding Galinda close to his chest, and grabbed hold of the edge of the pit, intending to pull himself up. He managed only a few feet, though, when he suddenly heard an odd sound. He began to pull himself out of the pit with more effort, but the sound continued… It sounded like… Fabric ripping?

"Oh, no…" he breathed.

The footsteps were approaching him, now, the beam of light getting ever closer, and Fiyero struggled desperately to pull himself free, but his arm seemed to have gotten snagged on something.

_RIIIIIIIIIIIP._

Fiyero fell to the floor in a heap, waking up baby Galinda. She immediately started crying, and he tried to console her, but it was hard coming when his straw began to spill out from the gaping hole in his side.

The pudgy man with the light ran to the scene now, and first curiously spotted the torn arm and hay hanging from a splinter in the wood at the edge of the stage. Confused, he moved the light to shine on the more pressing concern of a crying baby in a closed up theatre. He saw Fiyero sitting there, his straw spilling out of him like so much blood, and he couldn't keep his eyes from widening.

But the man in the guise of the Scarecrow smiled up at him nonetheless. Fiyero even laughed, recognizing the man from the night before. "Uh… A little help?"

---------

"Okay…" Sam grunted as she forced the rusty bolts binding Boq to his pedestal to loosen. "This is gonna be kinda difficult here, so you're going to have to help us out here, Tinma-- uhhh, Boq."

"Anything," Boq said earnestly, "So long as you get me down from here."

"Workin' on it." Sam held out the wrench and Glinda took it from her sullenly. Elphaba promptly handed her the crowbar.

"I still think we ought to just leave him here," Glinda huffed petulantly.

Elphaba rolled her eyes and took the wrench from her friend, beginning to loosen the bolt on Boq's other foot. "We need him if for nothing else than to explain how he got here so far before us, and what Madame Morrible is doing here."

In the dim lighting provided by the spaced-out streetlamps, Boq squinted down at Elphaba. "I feel you know me." His brow creased with a sharp creak. "Should I know you?"

Elphaba stared up at him for a moment, before jerking her head downward to get back to the task at hand, and mumbling, "Yeah, right, we can talk about that later." And she began turning bolts again, trying harder than before.

Soon enough, after having to stop two times to hide the tools from passers-by, lighting cigarettes and leaning against the base of Boq in an effort to look nonchalant, the three of them managed to free the towering former-Munchkin. Boq stretched his arms out above his head, making him look even huger than before, and causing Sam to step back and stare at him, scratching her head in thought.

"How in the hell are we supposed to get you into my apartment, which is not on the first floor…?" She sighed. "Yeah, okay, I guess we'll just have to take you up in pieces and put you back together in my living room."

Boq's massive shoulders slumped. "Oh, no. Please don't. I've already been taken apart once, and it's really an uncomfortable experience…"

"I'll bet," Sam agreed, sighing again. "Then, okay, let's just try and walk in." She looked out over the path through the park and across the street to her apartment. "If we run into anyone… I don't know, club them over the head and knock 'em out, okay?"

Boq nodded, unsure, and the four of them set out, the three women walking briskly to keep up with Boq's long, lumbering strides.

----------

Bill White pried his tired eyes open, wondering what he was doing lying on a cold, hard-wood floor, when just a moment ago, he had been investigating the origin of the sound of a baby crying in the orchestra, and he found…

Fiyero sat in front of the man, arm still detached, but slung over his shoulders, and baby Galinda sitting in his lap, burrowing her face into his chest, playing with the new hole in daddy's side. As opposed to his other encounters with the man on the floor in front of him, Fiyero didn't smile at him, but instead waited with mild trepidation.

When the man finally opened his eyes, he looked understandably confused, until his eyes rolled over to look at Fiyero.

"Ah!" Billy immediately sat up, scooting to press his back against the wall.

"Oh, please!" Fiyero leant forward. "Please don't faint this time! I only need to ask you a couple of questions about these settings here, please."

* * *

A/N: Ack! Wow, it's been a while, ain't it. Weeeeell, sorry about that, but things in the real world have a tendency to pile up on ya... Anywho, thanks to everyone who is still reading this, and to my new readers... And thanks especially to those folks who leave reviews! (Hint, hint.) 


	20. Chapter 20

"Duck. Duck! Duck, you idiot! I don't need you to hit the ceiling and screw up the plaster and get my security deposit taken away! Bad enough the landlady almost saw you. Even worse I get to pay for the broken floorboards in the lobby!" Sam was hitting Boq's massive backside repeatedly with her bag. "One of you is going to have to get a job to help me out with all this… Now sit down," she ordered, before mumbling under her breath, "I can see why Glinda doesn't like you…"

"Oh, he's annoying, alright, but that's not the only reason I hate him," Glinda assured her.

Sam nodded briskly, the both of them ignoring Boq's shocked squeak of "You hate me?"

"She has a valid reason, I think," Elphaba reasoned. Boq sighed and plopped onto the couch, breaking its legs and sending both it and himself crashing to the floor.

"And now, so do I!" Sam shouted at him. A pounding sounded up from the floor beneath them, and Sam trudged to the balcony window with a groan. "Sorry, Tom! Just ignore that!" she shouted down to the open window below them. On her way back to the others, she picked up the hacksaw from the toolbag and took a threatening pose in front of Boq. "You are a gigantic menace. I think I need to cut you down to size."

Glinda's eyes lit up. "Can I help?"

"No one's helping anyone do anything!" Elphaba shouted at the two of them, snatching the saw away from Sam and depositing it back into the bag on her way to the kitchenette sink. "We're not interrogating him like members of the Gale Force."

"You're from Oz, too?" Boq questioned, turning his head towards Elphaba with a painful-sounding creak. "Thank you for stopping them."

Elphaba turned on the water and smiled slightly. "Well, I feel like I owe you something, Boq." She sighed and washed the make-up off of her face. When it was at least mostly gone, she looked back up at Boq and tried to force a smile, but the effect was lost when the lumbering behemoth stood up and charged her.

"You!"

----------

Fiyero squeezed the stapler over his split side, trying to close the hole temporarily, and groaned in dismay. Galinda was currently asleep, being held gently by the nice pudgy man who was willing to give her what parts of his own lunch she was able to eat. It was a good thing the man was the fainting type, because otherwise he would have been the type that got angry at that which is new, unusual, or that they just plain don't understand. Ahem. Ozians, anyone?

Fiyero laughed bitterly at his own train of thought, startling poor Billy out of his shocked stupor. Fiyero winced, knowing his peace was going to be interrupted now, and he'd have a lot of explaining to do.

Very carefully, he slid his light frame towards the man absentmindedly holding his daughter. "Are you alright now? Can I—Are you alright to talk?"

Billy nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. "I think so. I should be… okay."

"Alright. Good," Fiyero mumbled. "Uhhhhhh… Where do I start?"

"How are you a real, live, walking, talking Scarecrow?" Billy supplied, helpfully, but still confused as all hell.

"Ah! Good question!" Fiyero threw a hand up in praise of the man's query. "It's all very simple, really. My lover tried casting a spell to save my life, but it went… somewhat awry, and the result is what you see before you."

Billy blinked. "That really didn't explain much of anything."

"Oh." Fiyero frowned, wondering how he was supposed to approach his situation now that he actually had someone to listen to him. "Well, can I ask you a few questions, then?"

Baby Galinda squirmed in Billy's hold, so he loosened it, smiling down at the odd little red infant. He looked back up at Fiyero, relaxing just the slightest bit. "Sure."

Fiyero looked around himself, taking in the various pieces of scenery hidden from view of whoever would be in the theatre's audience. "What are all of these sets for? I recognize the architecture, and that chalkboard there has Ozian history scribbled all over it."

Billy looked at the scenery in question, confused. "It's just… Stuff for the musical." Fiyero's imploring look made him feel as if he should say more. "Look, I'm just security. I really don't know that much about the show's background… Hell, I haven't even seen the whole thing; just bits and pieces during the rehearsals and stuff."

"Could you tell me what the show is about?"

"You know the 'Wizard of Oz'?" Billy asked.

Fiyero frowned. "I've met him."

Billy quirked an eyebrow. "Well, this is supposed to be the other side of the story. Like, it shows stuff from the Wicked Witch's point of view… Like she wasn't all bad and stuff."

"Well, that sounds like a show I'd like to see," Fiyero said with a faraway look and a fond smile. Then realization struck him, causing him to sag and his straw to shift. "So the real Wicke-- my Elphaba wouldn't be here then, would she?"

Billy laughed. "What? As in the living embodiment of the Wicked Witch of the West? A real, green-skinned woman? A freakin'-- ?" Billy trailed off, realizing exactly to who he was speaking. "Oh. Are you Fiyero?"

Fiyero smiled. "The living embodiment." He chuckled, trying to get up so he could get a better look around. Being one-armed as he was at the moment, he couldn't quick keep his balance, so Billy scrambled to his feet and helped him up. "Thank you. And thank you for holding Galinda for me."

Billy laughed at the name. "Well… You've only got the one arm right now, so…"

"Right, right. I just really appreciate it." Fiyero followed Billy into another section of the backstage area, dragging one arm along in the grip of the other. Billy flipped a light switch, and Fiyero found himself in a room full of vibrant, gaudy, Ozian fashions, and equally odd and garish wigs. "What are we doing in here?" he asked quietly.

Billy shrugged. "My niece works in the costume department. I'll ask her to help you out; patch you up, maybe tell you more about whatever it is you need to know." As an afterthought, he added. "…Fiyero." Then he laughed. "God, this is crazy."

"Oh, what, like you've never seen the effects of magic before," Fiyero scoffed.

"Actually…" Billy began…

* * *

A/N: Yay! An update! With a super-evil cliff-hanger between Elphie and Boq...

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

...

Ehh... Ahem.

Anywho, I'm trying to update sooner, everyone, but just because it's summer, doesn't mean I don't have to deal with life and school and work! As always, I am super-grateful to all of my reviewers, new and old, and I hope everybody's still interested! And just so you all know, things are going to get more confusing and aggravating for our heroes before they get better.

Later!

--Anna.


	21. Chapter 21

Elphaba dove out of the way of the charging colossus, narrowly avoiding Boq as he plowed right through the free-standing kitchen counter. The wood splintered everywhere, and the granite table top shattered, sending chunks into the walls and floors, ruining the paint job wherever they hit. Boq stood there for a moment, like a sluggish animal, before turning menacingly to Elphaba. He towered over her cowering form, and she desperately looked around for an escape, but she had backed herself into a corner. Sam was shouting in the background, but Elphaba was fixated on the mad look in Boq's eyes, as he raised his massive arms above his head, ready to bring them down on the woman he saw as the bane of his existence.

Boq narrowed his eyes at Elphaba, lying prone and visibly frightened on the floor in front of him. "You… Wicked Witch," he whispered intensely, before bringing his arms down on top of her-- .

"No!"

-- And stopping so abruptly he almost fell forward himself. There, between the giant and the green girl, stood Glinda, arms poised above herself, shielding her head as she was using her body to shield her friend.

Boq lowered his arms, shocked. "Glinda, what are you…" He trailed off, remembering the two women's history, their friendship, and Glinda's tirade from before she disappeared from Oz. His posture relaxed and he tried approaching Glinda a different way. "Glinda, this woman ruined my life."

Glinda lowered her own arms, slowly, an angry expression marking her features. "I already explained to you what happened, you idiot." She stood her full height right in front of him, still making her almost three feet shorter than him, standing her ground nonetheless. "And even if she was the only person responsible for this," she banged on his chest, "do you really think that's grounds enough to kill her?!"

Boq craned his neck up, looking past Glinda to see the other woman in the room helping a shell-shocked Elphaba to her feet. He then looked back to Glinda. "What would you have me do? Just forgive her? After everything, all the pain she caused me," he tried pleading with her.

Glinda sighed and put her hands on her hips in a defiant gesture. "Don't be an idiot. Find out the whole story first, meaning her side of it."

"And then what," Boq asked, skeptically.

She walked away from him, towards her still shaken friend, shrugging back at Boq nonchalantly. "Shut up and take it like a Munchkin." She left Boq with his jaw hinged wide-open, and turned to inspect her friend. "Are you alright?"

Elphaba nodded. "I must say, I wasn't expecting such a violent reaction."

"I know my opinion is useless, as I, as usual, have no idea what is going on," Sam said, "but I think I oughta chop him up and sell him for spare parts for the money to FIX MY DAMN KITCHEN!!!" Samantha hurled the closest object available-- the remote-- at Boq for emphasis. Naturally, the impact against Boq's metal body caused the plastic remote to shatter into several hundred pieces.

She ran a slightly shaky hand over her face and looked over at Glinda comforting Elphaba. The green woman looked like she was alright now, having gotten over the Attack of the Giant Tin Morons. Sam then cast a look over the room, groaning at the destruction. She wondered how things could get any worse…

Then a knock sounded at the door.

Every head in the room turned, horrified to look at it; three people moved soundlessly, the fourth with the groan of metal rubbing on metal accentuating the feeling of horror-movie dread in the air.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Sam stood to her feet. She pushed away her fears and strengthened her resolve, but the sound of a big tin soldier getting to his massive feet, wood, glass, and granite crunching-- no, being obliterated, underfoot… Well… Panic just had to set back in.

"Shit!" She exclaimed in a hushed tone. "All of you! Get into the bedroom! No one can see you! Well… Maybe Glinda, but the green woman and the living sculpture need to get out of sight." She scurried around the room, shooing the three Ozians out of view of the door. "On second thought, Glinda, you hide, too. I don't need to add more questions than I can handle."

As soon as the others were in the other room, and the door clicked closed, Sam raced back to the door, jumping over the couch and banging her knee on the coffee table on her way.

"Ah! Shit!" She rubbed her throbbing knee, but didn't slow her pace until she reached the front door. Forgetting the peephole, she immediately opened the door, albeit just a crack. There, in her slippers and robe, and all her various-droopy-body-parts glory, was Samantha's wrinkled and perpetually frowning landlady.

Immediately, Sam plastered a smile onto her face. "Mrs. Wilkins! What a," she forced the word out, "_pleasant _surprise!"

"What's going on up here?" the old woman croaked, her vocal cords gnarled from years of chain-smoking. "The whole building's shaking, and all the tenants are complaining about the noise."

"Uhhhhh… Noise?" Sam asked, lamely. For the live of her, or at least for the apartment of her, she couldn't think up anything to say that would put off her landlady's suspicions. "What… noise?"

Mrs. Wilkins stared at her flatly for a while, before letting out a breath of foul air. "You wanna let me in so I can take a look around?"

"No?" At the withering look she received, Sam sighed. "Alright, come on in." She swung the door open and let the old woman hobble on in. "Before you say anything, let me explain-- ."

"What happened here?"

"I-- uh-- a pigeon got in through the window and I kinda spazzed trying to get it to fly back out." Sam said, praying that the woman would buy it and take it easy on her for whatever reason.

There was a long silence, while Sam stood, cringing and not bearing to look at the woman, for fear of seeing her reaction.

"Why are all of your plates broken?"

Sam looked up, not expecting the calm question? "What-- ?" She looked up at the old woman who was currently disdainfully pushing glass and porcelain around the floor with her slippered foot. "What the hell-- ?"

The counter top was back in its original shape, perfect and without a scratch. There weren't even any stray splinters or chunks of granite counter. It was as if Boq had never gone crashing through it at all. Sam looked back at the bedroom door, where she saw her roommates peeking through a crack in the door; Elphaba with her eyes closed, a look of concentration on her face, and Glinda smiling madly, before frowning and pushing Boq's intruding head out of the doorway. When the Ozians ducked back into the room, Sam turned around to face Mrs.Wilkins, who in turn had just turned her attention back to Sam.

"You say a bird got in here?" She asked, suspiciously.

Sam nodded, eyes shifty. "… A big one."

"Well, you keep that damn window closed, then," the old woman said as she started hobbling to the door. "You broke you're doors there to the balcony. And the floor in the kitchen is scratched." She opened the door to leave, pausing a moment. "You know that means your security deposit is gone."

Before Sam could ask when she could expect her window to be fixed, her landlady left, shutting the door behind herself.

Sam sighed, locking the door before turning back around. She allowed herself a moment of resignation before she called over to her three housemates.

"You guys can come out now…"

As the three of them came back into the living room, Glinda couldn't help but mess up Elphaba's hair, affectionately. "See? You can use magic great when you concentrate!"

Boq's face took on a look of contemplation. "If I were to apologize, could you get me back to normal?"

Elphaba opened her mouth to speak, but as it often happens, Glinda interrupted her. "Well, now she probably could, but I still don't like you, so I forbid it!"

"You _forbid_ it?" Elphaba asked. "How do you figure you can forbid me anything?"

"Oh, Elphie, hush," Glinda dismissed her with the wave if her hand.

Elphaba rolled her eyes at her overbearing friend before turning back to look at Boq. "Boq, rest assured I will try everything in my power to make amends and get you back to normal, but my powers have never been all that concrete, so I can't bring myself to make any promises." She offered a small smile. "But an apology for the various attempts on my life would be greatly appreciated, nonetheless."

Boq turned his head so as not to look her in the eyes. "I'll think about it," he mumbled.

"No, no!" Glinda shouted, stepping right up to him, the near four-foot height difference making her appear the Munchkin in the room, but doing nothing to mask her fierceness. "What you need to be thinking about, or more like talking about, is what in the world you're doing here, and why did we just see HORRIBLE MORRIBLE ON THE TELE-WHOSITZ?!"

Boq rubbed the back of his head, sliding his hand over the rivets keeping him together. "She's still alive? Wow. She must be getting close to a hundred years old….."

"She certainly looked it," Sam pointed out.

"Wait a clock tick," Elphaba said, trying to get everyone back on track. "How is she here? How are you here? Why did you come here and how did you both get here so far ahead of us, when Glinda saw you in Oz only just before we left."

"And also, why are you huge?" Glinda piped up.

"That's a lot of questions." Boq lowered himself to sit on the floor, his joints groaning loudly. "Well, first of all, I don't know how we got here so far ahead of you, but the reason I came here was because I…. Well, I was looking for you, Miss G-- uh, Glinda. The guards in the palace thought they sensed a magical presence or something, and I knew I wouldn't be able to find you on my own, so after a few days I was able to get down to the dungeons to have a word with Madame Morrible. She said that not only was there a disturbance in the palace the night you disappeared, but that she sensed, somewhere else on the Imaginary Continent, just outside of Oz, a distinct change in the weather. Someone had conjured a twister, and she said the only person she ever met with such formidable magic, other than herself, was the Wicked Witch. She convinced me that you were in danger, Glinda, so I sprung her out of jail, and she conjured us a twister of our own, so we could follow you wherever yours took you."

There was a moment of awed silence, the words trying to sink in, before Glinda looked back up to face Boq.

"I'm sorry, all of those words seemed to have jumbled together. What did you say?"

Elphaba sighed. "He got Morrible to take him here in an effort to follow us. But that still doesn't explain how he could've gotten here before us."

"Maybe your trip took longer because you guys traveled here from outside of Oz," Sam suggested, feeling kind of out of the loop. "Like, maybe you were just that much closer."

Elphaba mulled over the notion. "Maybe."

"But thirty years?" Boq asked. "That's a long time. It seems like you all would have noticed something about the time it took to get here."

"Well, we're obviously not going to figure it out right now," Glinda huffed from her seat on the couch. "So how did you get so big? None of us changed size from the trip."

"Well…." Boq looked sheepish, but Elphaba cut him off.

"Maybe it's a side-effect of already having had a spell cast on you," she mused.

"Actually-- " Boq tried again, only for Glinda to cut in.

"That's true; we haven't seen Fiyero yet, so he could be affected as well." Elphaba winced at Glinda's mention of her lover.

"Nah, there haven't been any sightings of giant, walking, talking, scarecrows on the news."

"Fiyero was the scarecro-- Waitaminit!" Boq shouted. "Let's at least try to get back on track, here!" After pausing a moment, to make sure no one was going to continue speaking, he began again. "I can tell you quite plainly how I came to be so much taller."

"Go on," Glinda said, seeming upset with him for raising his voice at her.

"When Morrible and I were in that twister, the force of the winds rattled my rivets something awful. And, when the winds stopped, my body crashed to the ground, while Morrible was able to conjure winds to slow her descent. When I landed, my body shattered into bits, and I tried asking for help, but Morrible just smirked and ignored me, leaving me to rust in the rain in what I figure was a junk heap. Well, rust I did, and after… I don't know, a few weeks, a man came and gathered up all of my pieces, and some more metal he found lying around, and he added it to my body to make a giant version of myself. He sold it to the Park District and they 'installed' me in the spot you guys found me; I've been there ever since." Boq sighed and let out a rueful chuckle. "How lucky am I that he put me back, mostly, into my actual shape?"

Glinda gave him a dirty look. "You'd be luckier if he made you into a better-looking version of yourself."

"Glinda!" Elphaba scolded her, seeing the hurt look on Boq's tin features. "You're not helping."

"I can't help it if he brings out the worst in me," Glinda haughtily defended herself.

"I think men in general bring out the worst in you," Elphaba shot back, thinking of Fiyero and causing Glinda to huff in indignation.

As the two friends argued, an old can of worms having been opened up again, Sam turned to Boq with a firm expression. "They can argue, but I'd like to know what's going on. I mean, I'm pretty in-the-dark about all of this magical business, and we have so many problems to deal with I say the sooner we deal with them, the better."

Boq nodded his head. "I agree. But I'm afraid I've already told you all I know." He sighed. "I only wish I could do more to help….."

"Huhn. Well, if we get into a situation that calls for a giant metal man to wreak havoc on the city, I'll let you know." Sam sighed and rubbed a hand on the back of her neck before loudly cracking it. "Okay. Well, the only thing I can think to do would be to go to the Field Museum and corner the crone, and demand some answers."

"Right!" Glinda clapped her hands together once in anticipation. "As much as I hate museums, and really anything educational, let's get going!"

"Uhhhh, Glinda?" Sam asked gently, so as not to burst Glinda's bubble and cause a sort of massive psychological/metaphorical decompression, "We're going to have to wait until morning. The museum has an annoying tendency of closing at night."

Glinda humphed, but then left for the bedroom without another word, leaving Sam to wonder if she'd ever get to sleep in her own bed again, at least, so long as Glinda was staying with her.

* * *

A/N: Whoa! Long time, no update! Sorry about that, really, but real life sucks, and the next few chapters have been difficult to write. The story's going to start getting more intense, and the characters more active. So, and I know I keep saying this, but I'm really trying, updates should be up sooner than usual, and I just wanna wish Happy Holidays to everyone who celebrates one! Or, if you don't celebrate anything… Uh… Happy Winter! Hooray!

…..

And what better gift to give than that of loving (or hating) thoughts?

Review?


	22. Chapter 22

Hordes of people walked in cautiously, the din of their chatter filling the beautiful room with a white noise that could only be silenced by the dimming of the house lights, and the band striking up.

Thanks to Billy, Fiyero had gotten to watch the theatre's show that night, sitting with Galinda and muffling her ears so she should nap through it. He sat stuffed into a secluded corner of the catwalk high above the stage. He sat and watched the entire show, laughing and crying, remembering some of those moments, and wondering who had made up the others. He had to clamp a hand over his mouth several times to keep from shouting at the actors below him, correcting events or defending his Elphie.

Each time he touched his face, though, he had to smile. Billy the night guard's niece had fixed him up with a splendid disguise, and he himself was almost fooled by his foam latex face and human hair wig. That is, of course, until he looked into his eyes and saw them still painted on his burlap self. His new "skin" looked quite real, and moved with him perfectly, but there was nothing they could do about his eyes, save from him now constantly wearing sunglasses.

Billy's niece, a rather plain young woman named Janet, had been more amazed than shock, as her nerd-ish background left her longing for evidence of magic in real life, rather than fearing the unknown. She had immediately agreed to help, so long as she could ask Fiyero a perpetual string of questions while she worked on him, demanding to know everything he knew about Oz and magic, and how he had gotten to Chicago, and various other questions, each one shot out practically before he could answer its predecessor.

As the last notes played below him, Fiyero noticed the expression on the actress playing Glinda, and saw the sorrow and remorse on her face. He couldn't help but feel a littlee guilty seeing his staged self whisk the fake Elphaba out of Oz and out of her best friend's life. But when the audience roared, Fiyero had to hold himself back from clapping as well lest he wake up Galinda, or worse, be caught hiding and get thrown out, losing his new friends at the theatre.

When the curtains raised again, and the cast members came out to take their respective bows, each of the actors followed by a more essential character to the story, Fiyero watched them all with interest, amazed when the Goat playing Dr. Dillamond removed his horns and nose like a hat to take his bow, revealing him to be only an ordinary person like the rest of them.

The band in the pit below the stage swelled with a crescendo, welcoming the actresses for Glinda and Elphie back onto the stage. Even after the performance, even after they didn't need to be in character any more, they still smiled and laughed and hugged, and seemed to be the best of friends. Fiyero ran a hand over his new face, as if to wipe away unshed guilty tears, he couldn't help but smile a little when he felt the texture of his foam latex skin.

And Billy had said there was no such thing as magic here…..

----------

The lot of them, minus Boq (who Sam had introduced to the wonders of video games to keep him occupied), sat on the bus in silence. Sam sat mulling over possibilities for how their trip to the Museum would go, considering she didn't really know what was going on and was only there to provide information on how to get there, get back, and not cause a huge fiasco by acting wholly "un-unOzian," as Glinda had put it. Glinda herself looked annoyed with the quality of the other passengers on the bus, having been told already to stop complaining about their clothing or about the smell of the vehicle, and that, no, they couldn't afford to rent a horse and carriage or even a cab.

Meanwhile, Elphaba was nervously tugging at the sleeves of her black long-sleeved shirt, lest anyone catch a glimpse of her green skin beyond her peach-painted hands.

The ride took quite a while, since the girls had wanted to get there as soon as possible, ignoring, or maybe not understanding, Sam's complaints that they would be traveling at a snail's pace if they took public transportation during the morning rush hour (especially since the Museum was well into downtown Chicago).

When they finally got to their stop, Sam pulled the stop signal and the three of them got off. Ascending the many, many steps to the main entrance, Sam felt unhindered by her wallet, empty as it was due to her ever-increasing number of house guests, and muttered, "Thank God it's free on Tuesdays," under her breath.

Then they walked through the door to find the halls swarming with masses of hyper grade-schoolers.

Sam groaned. "I forgot that the public schools who are victim of the Board of Ed's cheapness flood the museums with field-trippers on free Tuesdays."

"So, this is going to take quite a bit longer than we had initially hoped, then?" Elphaba asked, hoping she had gotten the majority of what Sam said right.

"Hopefully not too much longer….."

After all of the children in various classrooms from various schools squeezed through the turnstiles at the security desks, which was roughly an hour of waiting later, the three women shuffled into the museum. Sam had gotten one of the maps of the Museum's floor plan, and they immediately headed for the exhibit on Victorian dress on the second floor. Only a few metres in, Elphaba had stopped, staring up in awe at a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in prominent display.

Glinda and Sam had actually walked a bit without her before they realized she wasn't just lagging a little; Sam had been staring intently at the map, while Glinda had been staring with equal interest at her cuticles.

Upon seeing Elphaba staring in wonder at the fossil, and also at various other curios around the entrance hall, Glinda huffed and rolled her eyes. "Oh, honestly, Elphie!" She walked back to her and pulled the taller woman along, dragging her by her arm and exposing a bit of green skin. "We can look at all of this any time! Right?" She looked to Sam for confirmation, and upon receiving an affirmative answer, continued. "We are on a mission here! It is of the utmost importance that we find out what Horrible Morrible is doing here!"

The reminder seemed to snap Elphaba out of her daze. "Right. Right. I know. This is all so fascinating, though….."

Sam smiled as she lead them up the stairs to the hall where the exhibit was. When they saw the fine garments, some of them beautiful, others garish, Sam let out a low whistle and Glinda's face scrunched up.

"Oh, the fashion sense."

Elphaba half-smiled, before turning to Sam. "So, how do we get to actually see Madame Morrible. I mean, I half-expected her to be here waiting for us. Is there someone we can talk to? Someone who will get her for us?"

Sam had the grace to look confidently contemplative for a few moments….

"Yeah, I hadn't thought of that," she finally admitted with an embarrassed laugh.

Elphaba gawked at her, but Glinda brightened. "Lucky for you all, I'm an idea person," she said happily. She then promptly picked up one of the brass stands holding the velvet rope and took a mighty swing at the nearest display, shattering the glass and toppling over a mannequin wearing an heavily embroidered dress. Her job done, Glinda turned back to look at her friends with a grin spread across her face.

The two of them, though, were gawking disbelievingly at her.

"Well, fine, if you don't appreciate my plan….." she made to walk out of the exhibit hall, but she stopped upon hearing footsteps coming their way. "Ah. See? Here comes Horrible Morrible now."

Unfortunately, though, it wasn't Madame Morrible, but a cadre of Museum security guards rushing the scene of the crime, a pair of which who were apparently so enthusiastic about their jobs that they actually tackled a shocked Glinda to the floor.

As Sam and Elphaba were still in a bit of shock over what their impulsive friend had done, the guards treated them more gently, simply apprehending them by using plastic ties on their arms behind their backs.

It wasn't until a screaming and struggling Glinda was hauled out of the room, and the sound of colourful curses and threats to bite and scratch faded into the distance, that Elphaba finally snapped out of it.

"Wait! Where are you-- We didn't-- ." She sighed, not knowing how they were to get out of this. "It was an accident," she tried, though it even sounded lame to her. "My friend was leaning on it, and it fell over onto the… thing… and it broke, and…" She trailed off at the raised eyebrows of the guard holding her. She was turned around, gently but forcibly, to exit the hall, following after Glinda, and with Sam being pulled along last.

Suddenly, a warbly voice sounded out behind them. "What is going on out here? Oh. OH!!! My garments! My work! Who is responsible for this?!" She approached Sam first, threw her an incredibly dirty look, then moved on to Elphaba. She turned her around by the shoulder, ready to give her hell, when the sight of green skin where peach-coloured make-up ended under the collar made her stop. Pushing through her shock, Morrible turned Elphaba around the entire way and peered intently at her face. "Oh, sweet Oz….."

Elphaba, at first intimidated by the sudden and close proximity of her former headmistress, plastered a smug glare on her face to keep up a mask of confidence, as if she had planned their meeting like this the entire time.

"You can't be…" Morrible whispered in shocked awe. "Can you..?"

Elphaba opened her mouth to retort, even though nothing sufficiently witty or scathing would come to mind, but was cut off by a screaming blonde blur running past them, arms bound behind her back, and more than the two initial guards that had escorted her in hot pursuit.

Elphaba, Morrible, Sam, and all of the security guards had followed the scene until they disappeared in the distance. Then Morrible and Elphaba returned to their face-off.

Elphaba, allowing the humour of Glinda's escape to overtake her own shock, smiled tightly. "Does that answer your question?"

----------

"That was BRILLIANT!" After the curtain fell for the final time that night, and the patrons filed out of the theatre, and a few employees came in to tidy up after them, Fiyero was excitedly talking Billy's ear off, as Janet was taking measurements on baby Galinda. "The sets were amazing, and the-- the music was wonderful, and the actors, and…" He stopped to run a had through his new, sandy blonde hair. "Just… Wow!"

"It is a good show," Janet said as she cut a length a length of fabric from her stores backstage. "Almost everyone loves it, and a lot of people come back to see it at least once."

"Well, I know I was moved, even though I've lived most of that first-hand."

Billy smiled. "It was pretty good. First time I've gotten to see the whole thing through, really." He reached into Janet's mini-fridge, kept tucked away under her the sewing table his niece was borrowing to make some new clothes for Fiyero and a couple of cute outfits for Galinda. After pulling out a bit of applesauce and milk for the little one, he turned back to Fiyero. "How are you enjoying the new you?"

Fiyero laughed. "Not too bad, I must say." He pushed the sunglasses further up the bridge of his false nose. "I do wish there were something you could do about my eyes, though."

"Actually, I think I have an idea, though it may be slightly uncomfortable."

"That's okay," Fiyero assured her eagerly. "I can't really feel all that much anyways."

Janet raised her voice, speaking over her starting up the sewing machine. "I could make you acrylic eyes, with opaque whites and tinted-yet-transparent pupils, maybe."

Fiyero let out an appreciative smile. "That would be great." He then looked a bit sheepish. "So, do you think I could use the beds from the dormitory set for Galinda to sleep in tonight?"

Janet and Billy traded a look. "What about you?" Billy asked.

"Oh, I don't sleep." Fiyero said as he fingered some scraps of material Galinda was chewing on.

"You don't sleep, you don't eat, you don't feel pain, or go to the bathroom," Janet said as she shut off the sewing machine and pulled out the fabric from under it, "If you were a puppy, you'd be the perfect pet."

Fiyero took the pretty pink dress and set it aside as Billy brought out a small package of diapers and the two men set about trying to figure out how to change the squirmy, stinky little thing.

"As it stands, though," Janet continued, rummaging through old wardrobe hanging here and there in the room, "You guys could come and stay at my apartment."

Billy's head snapped up, about to say a few disapproving words to his niece, but Fiyero beat him to it. "Oh, no thank you. I appreciate the offer, really I do, but I've got Elphaba already-- "

"I'm not hitting on you, you dope. It was just a polite offer," Janet rolled her eyes.

"Oh. Sorry. But really, I do enjoy exploring the theatre. It is rather interesting."

"You sure you want to stay? You're sure the midget (meaning Galinda) will be okay?" Billy asked. At Fiyero's nod, he chuckled. "Alright."

"Phantom of the Ford Centre," Janet mumbled, amused, under her breath.

"Alright," Fiyero said, clapping his hands together with a slap that he had missed through years of having burlap skin, "Now, I do have something else to ask of you."

"Shoot."

"Shoot?"

"It means 'go ahead,'" Billy translated.

Fiyero quirked an eyebrow. "Right. Well, I was wondering if either of you had any ideas of how to find my Elphaba; the real Elphaba."

Billy and Janet thought on it a moment, each mumbling their own ideas.

"Well, putting up flyers could work, but you don't know where they are, and it would be impossible to blanket the entire city."

"I'd say start looking places she might find interesting, but she'd be new here, too, so it's not like she has any common haunts."

"We can hope she sees or hears an ad for the musical, but we don't know if she has access to a TV or radio."

"And the bus signs might lead her to chase a bus, like you did, but in a totally wrong direction."

"How about an idea that _would_ work?!" Fiyero shouted, frustrated. Realizing his rudeness, he mumbled a bashful, "Sorry."

Everyone fell silent, then, mulling over their ideas.

Finally, Janet spoke up again. "Chances are, she will see some sort of ad for the show. She'll probably just ask someone for directions here, and then the only problem will be her getting in here to see you inside."

Fiyero thought about it, but his musings were interrupted by a short wail and a lot of fidgeting by his adopted daughter.

"Oh, my. She must be tired."

He began to rock her back and forth, quickly getting her to sleep, before bringing her out to the wings backstage and gently laying her on her stomach on the bed the fake Elphaba had used during the song "Popular." He said goodnight to the two of his new friends, who soon went home as well, and laid down beside Galinda, physically unable to sleep, so instead keeping vigil over his baby girl and letting his eyes roam the rafters overhead.

* * *

A/N: Haha! Another chapter out! And it didn't even take me eleventy-billion years! Go, me!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanywho, thanks to all of my reviewers, to those who are loyal reviewers, and to those nice new folks as well. And to those folks who were worried I'd abandoned this fic, fear not! I won't just forget about it; after all, the document file stares me in the face every time I boot up the ol' computer…..

So, in light of my determination to… eventually… finish the story, and the holiday spirit, and all that…

Review?


	23. Chapter 23

Madame Morrible sipped her tea lightly, then lowered the shaky hand holding her cup back to its saucer with a resonating clatter. Seated in the basement of the Museum, she was trying to calm her nerves. Seeing the person across from her, wearing a superiour look she'd only worn as the Wicked Witch, was still quite a shock.

Elphaba frowned, her eyes not leaving Morrible. While she definitely wanted to see the woman squirm under her gaze like this, something wasn't sitting right; Morrible was nervous. Morrible had never, ever appeared even slightly nervous back in Oz.

Seated a short distance away, Sam watched the two staring at eachother, certain that at any point Elphaba was going to leap out of her chair and they were going to throw down. She looked back at Glinda next to her, who was busy shooting a death glare at the older woman, as Sam tried to cut the restraints still binding her arms together.

Taking a breath, Morrible tried to calm herself again, to no avail, before looking up and meeting her former student's eyes.

"You're looking… well…" she began.

Elphaba's face fell. Her eyes half-lidded, she raised her eyebrows and took a deep breath. "What is this?" Morrible's forehead crinkled more than it already was. "What's wrong with you? When we were in Oz, nothing ever fazed you. Here, you see me, and you cower as if you're drinking tea with the Wicked Witch you so wanted to make me into."

Morrible stood shock still for a long moment after Elphaba's tirade, her teacup frozen half-way up to her mouth. Slowly, she lowered her arm, setting the cup down on the saucer with a dainty, controlled _clink_. Taking another moment to calm her breathing, Morrible glanced up into Elphaba's eyes, forcing her gaze steady above the rims of her glasses.

She cleared her throat before starting speaking in a shaky voice. "Elphaba… Dear…" She gulped as Elphaba's eyes hardened at the second word. "You must understand… It's been thirty years. I'm an old woman now, and any magical ability I used to have has dwindled to nearly nothing. I knew you would get here eventually, but I didn't know if I would live long enough to see it."

Elphaba furrowed her eyebrows at the woman's ramblings. "What are you talking about? How did you get here so far ahead of us?"

"I can't be sure," Morrible began, placatingly, "I've only got a theory, but it's based on quite a bit of evidence…."

"Out with it, already!" Glinda said, coming up to stand behind Elphaba, arms crossed to reinforce their imposing (at least, to Morrible) presence.

Morrible sent a brief, flat stare Glinda's way, but heaved another heavy sigh. "I suppose it's best I just say it bluntly…." Another deep breath. "I believe that this city is a sort of nexus point in space where everyone who leaves Oz ends up, but that there is no such anchorage for time."

Elphaba's eyes narrowed and she turned her hed slightly, obviously mulling over the concept, but Glinda raised a single eyebrow and continued staring at the old woman.

"What are you talking about?" She asked, toss-tossing her blonde curls back in a huff.

"What I think she means," Elphaba started slowly, "is that everyone who has ever left Oz has ended up here, in the same place, but that they don't necessarily arrive here in the same order…"

Morrible's eyes lit up, crinkling deeply at the sides. "Very good, dear! You always were my best student."

Elphaba rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. It was only ever between Glinda and I."

Morrible smiled thinly at the blonde. "Exactly."

Glinda narrows her eyes and pursed her lips. "Elphie, did we get the information we came for?" At Elphaba's half-nod, she continued. "Then can I hit her, and can we leave?"

"Wait a clock tick," Elphaba said. "How did you ever come to this conclusion?"

"Well, aside from our respective arrivals here as being living proof," Morrible said with all sarcasm and no malice, "Working in a museum does has its benefits."

She reached deep down into her large, leather purse, after a few moments pulling out a beaten and worn diary. Handing it to Elphaba, the notorious green witch flipped through it, finding numerous newspaper clippings in this world's written language taped or glued inside, idly wondering what spells these passages invoked. She flipped past several pictures of the same man, in several of the photos holding a book that appeared to be the Grimmerie Samantha had in her apartment. Turning pages slower now, to let her eyes linger and search longer for pertinent information on each page, she turned once more, then dropped the book and gasped as if burned.

There, in another photograph with the man in every other photo, was the wrinkled, smiling face of the Wizard of Oz.

As Elphaba and Glinda stared at the photo, Morrible went on with her explanation. "The Wizard arrived here, as far as I can determine, in the 1890s, over a century ago."

Samantha came over to glance at the photo. "So, I'm guessing he met L. Frank Baum when he was living here, huh?"

"Quite right," Morrible said, demurely. "Apparently, the Wizard took the name W. W. Denslow, and the two collaborated on 'the Wonderful Wizard of Oz,' and published it in 1900."

"W. W. Denslow…" Elphaba mulled over the name for a moment.

"'Wonderful Wizard..?'"

Elphaba turned back to look at Sam. "What?"

"W. W." Sam explained. "His initials. 'Wonderful' and 'Wizard' both start with the letter 'W.' Do you think he'd be that unoriginal as to-- ."

"Yes!" The former roommates chorused.

"So, everyone who leaves Oz ends up in this city, then." Elphaba smiled lightly. "Well, at least we know Fiyero's in the same town."

"Fiyero?" Morrible asked, surprised. "I thought he was dead!"

"Join the club," Glinda deadpanned.

Ignoring them, Elphaba turned to Sam. "Barring the fact that I'm a bit concerned about leaving Madame Morrible to her own devices, this world hasn't been plunged into eternal darkness, so I guess it would be safe enough to leave her be."

"So, have we got all the information you needed?" Sam asked. "Can we go home now, and see what horrible, horrible things the Tinman's been doing?"

"The Tinman?" Morrible asked, concerned. "He's still around, as well?"

"Yeah, actually. We've got him holed up in my apartment," Sam informed the old woman. "I'm sure he'd be glad to see you again, since you left him to rot in a junk heap."

Morrible looked unimpressed. "Who are you, anyway?"

"A friend of theirs who wants to get the hell out of here and go back home to see if I've been evicted on account of having a giant metal monstrosity playing Kingdom Hearts on my couch."

Morrible pursed her lips for a moment. "Ah. Well then, you may go." When the three of them started to go, Morrible piped up again. "I didn't mean all three of you. The interloper here is, I'm assuming, not from Oz, and so has a life she must maintain. I respect that, fully. The two of you, however, are in the custody of the Museum's security team, and they have decided to leave your punishment up to me."

"What?!" Glinda nearly shrieked. "No way! You stopped having jurisdiction over us when we left Shiz! You can't make us do anything!"

"I'm afraid you wouldn't like the alternative, my dear," Morrible smiled, showing the top row of her yellowed teeth.

"Anything would be better than being stuck with you again," the petite blonde said, confidently.

"Tell me, Glinda," Morrible started, coolly. "How do you think you would fare in captivity?"

Glinda's smug expression fell.

"You destroyed a rather pricey display and, more importantly, a series of priceless relics, and you're either going to work it off, or go to jail."

"Wait!" Elphaba said, putting herself between the blonde and the old hag. "Take me instead. I know how to handle you."

"I agree; take her instead!" Glinda piped up, standing on her tiptoes behind her green friend.

"I'm going to take both of you," Morrible said, rolling her eyes. "According to my testimony, all of you are responsible for the destruction of my work and Museum property."

Elphaba put her hands over her face and groaned, while Glinda remained, seemingly frozen, with her shoulders slumped and a look of despair on her face.

"Oh, really, it won't be that bad," Morrible assured, unconvincingly. "There are actually plenty of opportunities. The Field Museum has ties to the Chicago Park District, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Shedd Aquarium, the Lincoln Park Zoo-- ."

"The Zoo?" Elphaba asked, her interest piqued. "That's where they keep the animals in cages, right?"

"That's one of the places, yes." Morrible smiled. "Would you like to work off your debt there?"

"Actually…" Elphaba almost looked hopeful, "Yes."

"I think I can arrange that, dear," Morrible said, leaning back in her chair.

"Wait a minute," Sam said. "How are you gonna get them jobs? They don't have any kind of history here. They don't even have last names!"

"We do, too!" Glinda responded, scandalized.

"I can always work a little magic," Morrible told her. "Metaphorically speaking, of course."

"Well, that doesn't sound at all illegal," Sam mumbled, moving back to let the Ozians handle things themselves, and hoping she wouldn't end up in jail for all her troubles.

"So, it's settled. Elphaba will work at the Lincoln Park Zoo with the," she was careful to pronounce the lower-case 'a,' "_animals_ she so loves."

"Is it just me, or is Horrible Morrible actually being nice to you..?" Glinda whispered conspiratorially.

"And Glinda, having no discernable set of skills-- ."

"Hey! I was supreme ruler of Oz for seven years!" She pointed out, smugly.

"As I said, having absolutely no skills to boast from," Morrible continued, smoothly, "I will assign her to some custodial, hard labour here in the bowels of the Museum."

"I bet you ever thought you'd be working in the _bowels _of anything, growing up in Gillikin eh, Glinda?" Elphaba laughed.

"I am _not_ going to be a janitor!" The blonde shouted.

"You'll do what I tell you, or be carted off to prison," Morrible informed her airily. The old woman slowly got up from her seat, her back straightening accompanied by several pops and cracks. "You may go home now, dearies."

Still fuming, Glinda stuck her nose in the air with a huff and turning on her heel, intent on stalking out of there as soon as humanly possible. Elphaba followed, not knowing how to feel or what to expect, and not liking the feeling of helplessness, or being indebted to Madame Morrible. Sam headed out last, and thought she might've been the only one to hear the old woman's next snide remark.

"You start Monday, dearies!"

Sam was wrong, though, as she had to drag a kicking, screaming, and cursing blonde up and out of the basement of the Field Museum.

* * *

A/N: Okay, I know. It took a million years for me to update the bloody story. Take it up with my professors. They all blow this semester. It's been terrible. 

As always, I want to thank all of my loyal readers and reviewers (HINT, HINT!), as well as my more recent readers! You guys are the best! And I know I need to update more often, but I do hope to update a bit more frequently during the summer, and I also hope you all remember to review! I'll love you all forever if you do!

Let's break 200 reviews!


	24. Chapter 24

Fiyero held Galinda's pudgy arms above her head as they walked/waddled around the stage. Galinda's expression looked adorably overwhelmed, her eyes wide and her head bobbing back and forth, while Fiyero's was one of serene calm. As they completed their fifth lap around the foreground of the stage, Fiyero swooped Galinda up high and caught her in her arms, making the baby girl laugh.

"Well done, my girl!" His praise was rewarded with a squeal, a toothless grin, and a baby face-plant right into his chest, where Galinda resumed her favourite pastime of tearing her fluffy, cushy father apart.

A bang from backstage caught Fiyero's attention. "Fiyero! It's Bill!" The jovial man strolled into the light and flashed a smile at baby Galinda. "I've got a present for you. sweetheart!"

"Oh, Bill, you shouldn't have," Fiyero said, rolling his acrylic eyes.

"Not you!" Billy said, taking the baby and whapping Fiyero across the head with his bag. Bill chuckled to himself as he set Galinda on the floor and began laying out several toys in front of her, the nearest of which she grasped in her fat little hands and promptly began chewing on. "I figured she might want some new toys."

Fiyero faked being offended. "Oh, tearing out my straw isn't good enough any more, is it?"

Billy laughed loudly, the echo carrying well in the theatre, before actually glancing at Fiyero, and stifling his laugh in favour of peering intently at Fiyero's chest.

"What's that you've got there?"

"Is my straw sticking out again?" Fiyero asked as he looked down at himself. He spotted a torn piece of paper sticking out, stark white standing out against his deep blue tee-shirt. Realization dawned and a disbelieving smile spread on his face. "This-- this is the note…"

"Huh?" Billy asked, confused.

"The NOTE!" Fiyero bellowed, smiling as he pulled a stunned Billy closer to himself and thrust the torn paper into the night-watchman's hands. "This note was left on my house after the crash and Elphaba disappeared. This could lead me to her!" He shook Billy's shoulders hard. "I thought I'd lost it! What does it say? What does it say?!"

"To whom it may concern…" Billy began, smiling himself now. "There were two women here, both of whom seemed to have been knocked out in the crash. As there was no one else around, I took it upon myself to get them medical attention. If anyone should need to contact either the women or myself, please ask for 'Sam' at 773-487…" Billy's smile faded and his voice trailed off.

Fiyero laughed in glee. "I can find her! I can find her! That's an address, right? We've found her!" The converted scarecrow actually began to dance around for a good two minutes, before noticing that Billy wasn't nearly as jubilant as he was. "What's wrong? Let's go! Let's get my Elphie!"

Billy turned his eyes up to meet Fiyero, and he knew by his glassy eyes that something was wrong.

"What is it?" Fiyero asked.

"The note… isn't complete…" Billy said, forlornly for his friend. "We need to find the rest of these numbers."

Fiyero paused for a moment, his face dropping, before setting a determined look across his latex face. "Well, then, let's find it!"

As Fiyero fervently began tearing the straw out of his chest and stomach, desperately searching for the rest of the note that would lead him to his Elphie, with Billy double-checking the piles of straw on the floor, the search was interrupted by a soft coughing noise.

Turning their gazes simultaneously to baby Galinda, they saw her spit out a wad of chewed up, soggy paper, smiling innocently up at them with adoring eyes.

----------

"Well, I wanted you to get jobs, but I was hoping it would be of your own volition, to help me out, instead of it being a punishment forced upon you by your ancient, former headmistress." Sam flipped quickly through the stack of bills that awaited her in her box on the way back up to the apartment. "Community service doesn't help me pay the bills."

Despair flooded her being, with thoughts of bankruptcy and living in a cardboard box in close quarters with two Ozian women and a rusted metal man-turned-lightning-rod frozen in place just above them, her only source of entertainment involving chucking rubbish at the tin monstrosity.

Her intensely morose train of thought was derailed by a squeal of delight and a shout of triumph. Looking at the couch, she saw that her houseguests were getting on unusually well as Boq offered tips to Elphaba as she tried to bash her way out of Captain Hook's Pirate Ship, while a thrilled Glinda both cheered her on and repeatedly asked for a turn, as soon as Elphie died.

Sam smiled lightly, the scene reminding her of her siblings and herself back when the original Nintendo System came out…

A thought struck her, and she called out to Elphaba to pause the game, causing Glinda to bemoan the added wait to her turn on the PS2.

"Hey, whatever happened to flying?" she asked, remembering their earlier plans for Elphaba to achieve stealth flight.

Elphaba and Glinda shared a confused look. "Pardon?"

"We were going to… uh… enchant your new clothes so you could fly in them without having to carry a broom around with you everywhere you went," Sam reminded them. "Did that idea just fizzle out or what?"

Glinda thought for a moment, then cast a hooded stare at Boq. "I think we got a little bit side-tracked between finding him and Morrible here."

"Oh, yeah," Sam said, striding over to their abandoned shopping bags. She looked through them and pulled out all of the items belonging to Elphaba and piled them onto the table by the kitchen.

"Alright," she said, turning her attention to the green witch, "You probably want to get this done before you have to spend all your time at work."

Elphaba stared at her, game controller still in hand.

"Go for it," Sam urged her.

Sighing, Elphaba dropped the game controller (which Glinda promptly pounced on), and walked to the table.

"Ave… Tatem…" She began, reciting the familiar spell, holding her arms just slightly out ahead of herself.

The pile of clothes began to glow softly, and a faint humming noise could be heard. Elphaba closed her eyes. The glow grew stronger, and seemed to spread over the pile of clothes, then over the table and towards the other few bags of clothes, belonging to Glinda. The three non-magical folk grew concerned, but kept quiet, not knowing whether they should interrupt Elphaba in the middle of a spell.

Finally, Elphaba finished, and opened her eyes. Her wardrobe, along with the other couple of shuddering bags of clothes, were floating in midair.

Her shoulders slumped and Elphaba muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, "messed up another one," but an excited squeal from Glinda had her popping her head back up just in time to see a blonde bullet-train barreling into her.

"Oh, Elphie, thank you!" Glinda gushed. "I've missed my old bubble ever so much, and you making it so my clothes can fly too… That's just so sweet of you."

Elphaba's eyebrows raised at being called "sweet," but she didn't know how else to respond. She knew she hadn't intended the spell to spread so widely, but she figured there was no harm in Glinda's clothes also being enchanted, as Glinda was a fairly experienced flyer.

"Aw, no way!" Sam cried, staring at the floating bags of clothes. "Her clothes are gonna fly, too?" She proceeded to grab a bag out of the air and rifle through it, pulling out an orange knit zippered hoodie. "I'm stealing this." At the looks on everyone elses faces, she added, indignantly, "Hey, I wanna fly, too."

Elphaba though it over. "What do you think?" she asked the petite blonde next to her.

"She has given us a lot," Glinda admitted. "I think we owe her something." She paused. "Plus, she's the one who actually paid for the sweater."

Elphaba smiled slightly, amused by the thought that this was the first time she'd ever heard Glinda admit that one of "her" belongings weren't actually hers.

Sam gleefully shoved her arms through the sleeves of the orange sweater, straightening it out and smoothing any wrinkles. She couldn't wipe the grin from her face as she waited for something to happen, some change in sensation that would indicate the possibility of flight opening up to her….

Until nothing happened for quite a while, during which time the Ozians in residence had stared unabashedly, wondering at their benefactor's peculiar behaviour.

Sam's eye popped open. "Why isn't anything happening?"

After a long moment, puzzling it over, Elphaba shook her head slightly, wearing a small frown. "Maybe there's a reason magic doesn't exist here… Maybe your people have a… natural resistance to it…"

"It would explain Morrible's waning magical ability…" Glinda agreed, trying not to sound too smug at the knowledge that her old professor was gradually becoming as supernaturally useless as she herself was.

"Aw, man," Sam muttered, stuffing her hands into the pockets of the (unfortunately) ordinary sweater. "I was looking forward to flying so much…"

"Maybe you could come flying with one of us?" Elphaba suggested, trying to cheer their benefactor up. "I could use a spare set of eyes when I patrol around, looking for Fiyero."

"It's not the same…" their dejected host sighed, shoulders slumped as she left the room.

The Ozians shared a bewildered glance for a moment, then collectively shrugged and went off to get ready for their new work weeks.


	25. Chapter 25

Kelly Warner entered the Reptile House and caught sight of her quarry. She almost had to do a double take on the woman, aglow in the dim green light this wing of the Zoo was constantly bathed in. The new girl looked so at home in here, it was almost eerie.

"Hey, Ellie!" the young redhead greeted her. "Tom's waiting for you by the boas; said he's gonna show you to extract the little baby snakes without getting the blood cut off from some vital body part…"

The tall, lithe brunette nodded with a tight smile. Sure she was odd, but she seemed nice enough… To each his own, and all that, Kelly thought, leaving the newbie to find the zookeeper on her own.

Wandering through the reptile house, Elphaba frowned. "Ellie" was the name she was forced to give to her co-workers at the Lincoln Park Zoo, as her own name was becoming more and more recognizable for some Oz-unknown reason…

Elphaba shook her head and continued on her way, past the rest of the lizards and snakes, stopping at the discrete door marked "Employees Only" between the iguanas and the geckos. Sliding the door shut gently, she turned to face the Keeper of the reptile house slipping into grey-blue coveralls.

"Hello there, Ellie!" The witch rolled her eyes, but forced a smile. "So, Misses Hiss here has laid herself a couple of eggs, and today you get to figure out how to safely extract the eggs before they hatch and the mother eats her youngin's."

Elphaba recoiled violently at that. "Are you saying that the mother would eat her own babies?"

Tom nodded gloomily. "It happens."

"I don't believe it."

"Well," Tom scratched his head, "It's not that uncommon a thing in nature, as I understand it. A lot of animals are cannibalistic, ya know…" He leant in close to his new apprentice and whispered, "Personally, I think being locked up in a tiny cage like this drives 'em a little bit loopy."

Elphaba stared strangely at the man. She definitely heard a strong note of sympathy for the animals from the wiry old man, but he still fully accepted them as being beneath himself. To think that these animals, some of whom were actually _born _in captivity, not only couldn't talk, but that they would become so mindless and savage that they would _actually eat_-- .

Elphaba's train of thought was almost thankfully derailed as Tom thrust a pair of coveralls into her hands.

The undercover Ozian sighed and slipped her new work clothes over her ripped jeans and plain top, getting ready to face a, by all accounts, mindless beast. She sighed for the second time in 10 seconds.

She was in for a lot of work.

----------

"No, no, no. The shelf above that one. Above it!"

Glinda blew a stubborn golden curl out of her eyes. "There's a perfectly good, perfectly empty shelf right in front of my belly button; why do you _insist _I put the heaviest _Oz-darned_ box on the highest _Oz-begotten_ shelf!"

Madame Morrible, former Headmistress of the prestigious Shiz University and resident expert on Renaissance dress at Chicago's Field Museum, smiled tightly as she sipped her tea.

"Because I can."

Working hard to stifle a stream of very angry, very loud curses, Glinda settled for a dirty, somewhat deranged look consisting of pursed lips, red cheeks, and one eye squinted to a considerably more severe degree than the other. The Ozian had contemplated braining the old crone with various priceless relics in one of the Museum's sub-basements, but she always managed to catch the attention of a coworker or security guard before the deed could be done. As it was, after so many attempts at witch-icide, Glinda now had her very own guard assigned to her, to keep her out of trouble with the occasional stern glare or conspicuously cleared throat.

The blonde blew the same tuft of golden hair out of her eyes and held her breath, tightening her seldom-used muscles in an attempt to force the heavy box overhead and onto the high shelf. Finally pushing it further in, to rest firmly between a different set of heavy-looking boxes, Glinda's shoulder's sagged and she let out a long breath.

"I have never been so exhaustified in my entire life," she mumbled, wiping a hand at her forehead, then pulling it back in disgust. "Oh, sweet Oz, I'm sweating!"

A deep, rasping chuckled made her look to Morrible, whose shoulders were starting to shake, causing her teacup to clink lightly against her saucer.

"Don't be ridiculous!" The old witch scoffed. "A little hard labour is good for you! Think of it as an exercise in building character."

Glinda took a deep breath, readying her voice-box for another bout of screams and insults, but a distant, tinny announcement sounded, halting a half-formed curse in her throat.

"Okay, ladies and gents. All visitors have been cleared out, so get ready to punch out and go home; Bobby wants to lock up in a half-hour, tops."

It took a moment for Glinda to mull over the announcement, taking her time to decipher any words belonging to this new, ever-growing string of slang terms but, once she'd realized the general meaning was that she was free to go, the smile that spread across her face and the swell of joy in her heart was indescribable. She quickly composed herself, catching her breath and making her way to the locker in the break room where she'd stashed her coat and bag, when a withered hand grasped her by the forearm.

She turned back to see Horrible Morrible holding out her teacup and saucer, smiling sweetly.

"Be a dear and leave this on the sink in the break room, would you?"

Glinda bit down on her tongue, showing her teeth in a horribly forced show of politeness, and roughly took the offending dishware off of her hands. She decided to simply be accommodating, so long as it meant she could get out of there all the more quickly. Glinda quickly strode out of the room, her brilliant smile coming back at the thought of being done flittering through her head.

"Oh!" The old woman called out again. "And I'll see you tomorrow, dearie!"

A shrill scream and the sound of china breaking echoed in the hallway outside.

----------

"4-8-7-0-3-6-8. Hello, is this 'Sam?' Oh. Sorry. 4-8-7-0-3-6-9. Hello, is this 'Sam?' No? Sorry to bother you. 4-8-7-0-3-7-0. Hi, is there a 'Sam' there? Damn it!"

Fiyero slammed the receiver back onto the phone, his frustration beginning to get the better of him. Billy had promised to show him how to place a phone call the following night, having been way past due to go home already, but Fiyero had grown impatient. It had taken him a while to figure out how to use the telephone, but he'd done it, and was now enacting his brilliant plan; dialing every combination from one of the desk phones in the theatre in an effort to find this mysterious 'Sam,' the one who'd left the note and taken his beloved Elphaba to their home.

Shuffling baby Galinda into his other arm, as she'd started fussing in her sleep after his outburst, Fiyero sighed and picked the receiver up, calm and ready to start again.

"4-8-7-0-3-7-1. Hello, is 'Sam' there? Really?! Can I speak with them!"

There was an agonizing pause as distant voices spoke to eachother, and a new speaker came on the line. "Yeah, this is Sam."

"Sam!" Fiyero practically sang the name. "Boy, am I ever glad to talk to you! How is she? Where are you? Will you put her on the phone?"

"What?" The voice on the other line sounded confused, if also a bit tired. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well now, you wait just a clock tick!" Fiyero's elation had quickly given way to confusion of his own, and then anger. "You said you're name was Sam! The note I received said 'Sam.'"

"Well, maybe you dialed the wrong number," the voice supplied helpfully.

"But you said you were Sam!"

"I am! But maybe it's a different 'Sam!' Ever think of that, genius?"

Fiyero paused, holding the phone away from his ear as if he were afraid it was going to bite. "Hold on! You mean there's more than one 'Sam?' Oh, for Oz's sake!"

----------

The sound of jingling keys alerted the Ozians to their benefactor's arrival. A moment later, a sluggish Sam came through the door, kicking her bag across the threshold as she shrugged off her jacket and let it fall to the floor, uncaring. A low moan escaped her lips as she collapsed onto the couch, a hand coming up to her forehead. She closed her eyes and sniffed loudly.

Glinda, who had been raiding the freezer for ice-cream, went to close the door she'd left open, concerned at her roomie's behaviour. After dead-bolting the top lock, she came to sit on the low coffee table across from the couch.

"Sammy?" Her inquiry was met with a stifled grunt, but the blonde pressed on. "Are you alright?"

Sam turned her head slowly, deliberately, to glare at Glinda through bleary eyes. "Do I look alright?"

"Actually, you look downright rotten."

Sam grunted again, turning her head away and closing her eyes, fully intent on ignoring everyone and everything around her.

Glinda furrowed her brow and turned to her side, surprised to see Elphaba already giving her a flat look from the open window, where the green woman had been cooing in hushed tones to the orange house-cat. "Alright, so maybe that wasn't the best answer I could have given." She turned back to face Sam, her blonde curls bobbing as they often did when she was flustered. "Well, Sammy," she leaned in close and grasped her friend's hand, causing the younger girl to give her a wary look through one slitted eye, "if there's anything I can do for you, you know I'd be happy to help."

Samantha opened both eyes as her eyebrows raised in disbelief. She pushed herself up into an upright position on the couch. "Well... Thanks, Glinda. That really means a lot to me-- ."

Glinda sprang from the coffee table and sat beside Sam, wiggling herself deeply into the cushions and pressing her roommate into the armrest. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, just wait until after I finish this level."

Samantha rolled to her feet with a groan as Glinda lunged for the remote and un-paused her video game. The bouncy blonde had developed a real penchant for taking out virtual terrorists through a sniper scope. Sam wondered if there was any sort of underlying issue therein which should concern her, but she put it out of her mind as she stepped over Boq, who was lying on the ground, flipping through a comic book and no doubt trying to decipher the story though pictures alone. She halted in front of Elphaba, and the older woman's hushed tones halted as she realized that her rather one-sided conversation with the cat was being intruded upon.

"Can I help you?" Elphaba asked, annoyed at the interruption.

The cat made a sort of hissing, wheezing cough of a sound, drawing a look of concern from Sam. "What are you doing to my cat?"

Elphaba raised one eyebrow as she turned back to give the orange furball a scratch behind the ears. "Streaky and I were just talking."

"Oh, well, of course you were," Sam rolled her eyes and continued on towards the bedroom. "I'm going to go relax for a bit. Glinda, you want to make dinner tonight?"

"Pizza rolls are already in the microwave!" she heard the blonde call back between high-powered rifle blasts.

The cat made hacked again, this time with a slight gurgle, and Sam swore that she saw a smile blossom onto Elphaba's face.

"Oh, yes, she is a culinary genius," Elphaba spoke quietly.

"Whatever, I don't care what we're eating," Sam said, taking off her outer sweater to reveal a low-cut tank top, on which Boq's gaze lingered briefly. "I'm just glad to be home. You would not believe the day that I have had."

Elphaba scoffed. "Yeah, well you should see the things that go on at that Zoo place.."

----------

"Ten thousand numbers, Billy. I called ten thousand numbers. There were one hundred and fifty seven places where someone named 'Sam' lived, but none of them were right. None of them had my Elphie….. Did you know Sam was both a man and a woman's name? What kind of place is this? What kind of people allow that? Some of them didn't even speak this language! Some homes had more than one Sam living in them. Are you all so unoriginal that you run out of names so quickly?"

Fiyero sat slumped against a wall in the security office, his head lolling back and forth. Billy was watching the sad sight, bouncing Galinda on his knee, while Janet sat at the desk, dutifully trying to un-baby-drool the wad of paper the kid had spit up, but with little to no success.

Finally, she threw her hands up, disgusted with herself. "I'm sorry. It can't be done. Whatever paper was still intact, the ink is long gone, probably swirling through the midget's intestinal tract as we speak." Her arms stretched above her head, before one settled to start rubbing the back of her neck and the other fell limply to her side. "We can only hope it was non-toxic." At her uncle's horrified look and subsequent scrutinizing of the baby, she added. "I'm kidding. Jeez, I'm sure it's not that big a deal."

"I just don't understand it!" Fiyero near exploded. "Every number! Every possible combination! I even watched six hours of something called 'infomercials' to figure out which symbols in your language corresponded to numbers in Ozian! Six hours! I'm not even sure what a 'Ginsu' knife is, but I feel the urge to own one, and it won't go away!"

Billy's eyebrows knitted together, thinking the situation over. He stared blankly at Fiyero, pathetically sprawled out on the floor, looking as exhausted as a man who didn't need sleep could. Then a realization struck him.

"Say, did you remember to dial the area code first?" He asked, causing Fiyero's head to stop rolling from side to side, instead slowly turning his gaze to look up at the security guard with a somewhat vapid expression.

"Huh?"

"Did you dial 7-7-3, first? Did you dial seven numbers for each call or ten?" He explained.

Fiyero shook his head, straightening his posture a bit. "What? No, I-- Uh, Seven. Why would I-- ."

"Well, you need to dial the area code!" Billy laughed. "That's your problem! You dialed a whole set of wrong numbers!"

"Uncle Billy, don't laugh!"

"What? I can't help it; I'm relieved."

Fiyero sat, watching them speak for a moment, before speaking up. "Wait! Hey, no! You said the area code is only for different areas! You said this would be in this same city; therefore, in the_ same_ area. Why would her phone number be in a different area?!"

"Well, no. You don't understand. The city's so big, about ten years ago, they had to add a second area code, so now we have '7-7-3' and '3-1-2.' So it is the same city, but it's so big, it needs more than one area code."

"The city would have to have ten million people to need a whole extra code!" Fiyero exclaimed. "If this city is that big, I'll never find my Elphie!"

"Oh, no, no. There are a couple million people in the city, but most people have more than one number," Janet began, continuing at Fiyero's disbelieving look. "Yeah. You've got your home phone, your work phone, cell phone, secondary lines, a line for fax machines, and some people still have dial-up…" She counted the types off on her fingers.

Fiyero groaned. "Dumb it down for me; what does this all mean? What do I have to do?"

"You'll have to do it again, starting with '1-3-1-2-4-8-7-yadda yadda yadda…'" Billy explained, waving him off.

"You mean I wasted all that time since last night?"

Billy could only smile, and Janet could only shrug sympathetically.

For the first time in a while, the Scarecrow truly wished he could feel pain… If only to feel the sensation of his head banging repeatedly against the wall behind him.


	26. Chapter 26

"God, it's good to get out of the house," Samantha said, swinging her arms wide as she, Elphaba, and Glinda strolled lazily through the park.

Glinda, eyes showing how tired she was from her first full week of work ever, still bore a small, contended smile. "Sunday is the best day ever, in my opinion."

She looked over at Elphaba, her green skin covered with make-up to give her a more normal, slightly tan, skin tone. She was smiling as well, but obviously still in deep thought, as she had been ever since her first day at the Zoo. Glinda gave her a jostle, swinging her hips playfully at her and knocking the Witch slightly off-balance.

Elphaba looked up, startled out of her thoughts. "Huh-- What?"

"No work!" Glinda exclaimed, gleefully throwing her arms in the air. Sam promptly slapped her open hand, causing Glinda to cry out, more in surprise than pain as her hand was almost fully healed by now. "What was that for?"

"It's called a high five," Sam explained, having forgotten how much the Ozians were still unfamiliar with. "It's a sign of moderate celebration."

"Oh!" Glinda nodded briskly, pink wheels turning in her blonde brain as she bore the expression that Sam had noticed she always did whenever trying to file away new information. She turned to her best friend. "Elphie, high-five me!"

Elphaba half-heartedly complied, having closed in on herself again.

Glinda looked at her through one squinted eye. "Are you still thinking about work? Stop it right this..." She struggled to find the word. "Minuet."

"Minute," Sam corrected her automatically. "Sixty 'clock ticks,' or seconds, make up one minute."

"Right!" Glinda exclaimed. "No dwelling on work when there's fun to be had. You get six days a week to be mopey and withdrawn! Isn't that enough?"

Elphaba rolled her eyes at her friend, but shook herself out of her reverie. "Sorry, Glinda. I was just thinking."

Glinda scoffed dramatically. "You're never _just_ thinking; there's always a scheme in there somewhere, taking shape. You don't just think. You plot."

"Jeez, you make it sound like she really is wicked, Glinda," Sam said, ignoring the flat look Elphaba was giving her. It was the same one she always gave the younger girl whenever she brought up the subject of her reputation. "Ease up."

"Actually, I was thinking about Fiyero and my baby girl," Elphaba said in a quiet voice.

Glinda immediately looked away, feeling guilty. She had completely forgotten about Elphaba's lover, having resolved to push all thoughts of the Winkie Prince-turned-Scarecrow to the back of her mind; she hadn't realized that she'd be that good at it. Of course, she had thought of her little niece often, but realized that, at least when she was working, most of her brainpower had been divided between fantasies involving Morrible's long overdue demise at her hand and counting down the time to her next break.

"We'll find them, Elphie," she placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Just stay positive, and I promise that we won't rest until we've found them."

"We're resting now, Glinda," the green woman pointed out. "Here we are, about to have a night of fun and relaxation when my daughter and the love of my life are out there, who knows where, possibly freezing and hungry."

Glinda wisely decided not to point out that Fiyero could feel neither pain nor cold, and certainly not hunger, knowing that that would simply make Elphaba doubly worried for her daughter. "Elphie," she began, attempting a different tactic, "Fiyero wasn't Captain of the Gale Force for nothing, you know. He is very resourceful, and you and I both know that he would use his own straw as kindling if it would keep Galinda comfortable for even a mini-- a minute. She couldn't be in better hands." She smiled widely at Elphaba, who still looked unsure. "Well, except for maybe your own hands." She grinned in triumph as Elphaba really did crack a smile at this.

"Thanks, Glinda," she said, taking her blonde friend's hand and squeezing it firmly.

"What are friends for, if not comfort and fashion sense?"

Elphaba let out a chuckle, and Sam resumed their walk, leading them to the pizzeria on the other side of the park.

"I'm just glad to be doing something new, and to be with the people I like best," Glinda sighed. "Between always being with either Morrible or Boq, I'm this close to going spare." Glinda held her thumb and index finger very close together, but not touching, to illustrate her point.

Elphaba glanced back in the direction of the apartment building, guiltily. "I feel bad that he's stuck inside until I manage to find a spell that will turn him back into a human." She ran a hand through her hair, careful not to smudge her makeup. "If I ever do manage it, that is."

"Don't worry about it," Sam waved a dismissive hand. "With the chatrooms I've shown him, he'll be happily occupied for a while yet."

"Ooh, what's a chatroom?" Glinda asked, ever curious about new and interesting technologies.

Sam smirked. "The reason he's gotten so good with the keyboard so fast." She thought back to their sporadic lessons on reading and writing in the English language, and how the TinMan had managed to work his way ahead of Glinda easily upon learning that he could rely on text-based communication with the outside world, and some questionable communication with even more questionable individuals at that.

"I do admit, though, that I actually kind of love working at the Zoo," Elphaba said, deciding to start a new line of conversation. "I mean, the place itself is deplorable, but I really think that I'm making some headway with the Animals."

Sam frowned at the odd pronunciation, and the even odder statement. "Progress of what kind, exactly?" She was worried about what kind of havoc a magical visitor from another world might cause, even accidentally, in a place full of animals and children.

"Oh, who cares?" Glinda threw her arms out and spun in a merry little circle. "It's Sunday, it's our day off and away from it all, in this beautiful city full of life and lights!"

Sam held up a hand and tried to intercept Glinda's ramblings before the blonde could really get on a roll. "No, wait, this is important and I think that I might want or even need to know about all of this."

Before Elphaba could either answer or deftly evade the question, a man suddenly rushed by, ripping Glinda's purse from her shoulder and increasing his speed as the women called out after him.

"Hey! Purse-snatcher!"

"Stop! Thief!"

"Ha, joke's on him. I'm broke!" Glinda shouted at him retreating form, waving a dismissive arm.

"So not the point!" Sam yelled back at her as she and Elphaba took off at a sprint, hoping to catch the man. At that moment, her cell phone began to ring, but she quickly ended the call, sending the caller to voicemail; she'd check it later.

She'd rather chase down the mugger in the park than answer a call from an unknown number at the moment anyways.

----------

_"-- reached the voicemail of Samantha Larsen, I'm not available at the moment, but if you leave a brief message..."_

Fiyero frowned at the phone's receiver as he held it a short distance away from his ear. He quickly pressed it up against his new false/prosthetic ear.

"Hello? Hello, is anyone there?" He waited for a response before pulling the phone away again and setting down the receiver to prepare for yet another phone call. "Darn it."

He wracked his brain for the number he'd just dialed, added one to it, and resumed his long list of calls for the night.

----------

Sam struggled to chase down the thief, and at this point realized that she'd settle for keeping up with the too-energetic Elphaba. When was the last time she'd gotten to the gym? Shaking her head to clear it of that depressing line of thought, she turned to the cellular phone still clutched in her hand and promptly began to dial 911, hoping to at least report the robbery. As she slid her finger over the touch-screen, she suddenly realized that the ground was shaking, ever so slightly. Ignoring it, she pressed on.

"_911 Emergency."_

"Yes, hello, I'm calling to report a robbery," Sam began, struggling all the more now that her breath was being made to work double-time. "I'm in Oz park and-- "

She trailed off. The soft sound of distant creaking and groaning reached her ears, and she noticed the few other denizens of the park at this late hour turning to look in the direction they'd left Glinda, gasps and shouts ringing through the otherwise silent night. She chanced a look over her shoulder, hoping that her intuition was way off of the mark on this one.

"_Hello? Hello, ma'am? Are you alright?"_

Sam held the phone limply in her hand. Barreling down on them all and gaining speed, Boq had emerged from a nearby alley and was charging the thief himself. He past by her and a gust of wind knocked her onto the grass, causing her to flail wildly. He then even managed to outrun Elphaba, who in turn slowed down in awe at the sight of Boq in public. He managed to take only a few more large strides and cut the criminal off completely, going so far as to release a menacing, incoherent, guttural growl. The man, who had been so focused on escaping, rushing into him and bounced harmlessly, for Boq at least, off.

The robber recovered quickly, but stopped, shocked, at the sight of the giant metal man before him. Steeling himself, the thief reached into his pocket and pulling out a snub-nosed revolver. His face a tight mask of fury, he fired off three rounds, one of which pierced Boq's metal hide, while the other two simply richocheted off and away, luckily not hitting any of the bystanders.

Enraged, but still looking like he was having a suspicious amount of fun to the women, as Glinda had finally managed to catch up, he hefted the man up from his arm and plucked the purse from it and the gun from the other, before effortlessly flinging him into a group of nearby garbage cans. He then turned to face Glinda, handing her her purse back while mangling the pistol with his free hand.

"Oh, sweet Oz, are you crazy!" Glinda yelled, ripping her purse from his hand and planting her own firmly on her hips.

Elphaba quickly came up and covered an indignant Glinda's mouth, but began her own tirade, albeit in more hushed tones. "How could you leave the house! And when there's even a speck of daylight left, let alone still in the late afternoon!"

Boq furrowed his brow, his triumphant smile slipping off of his face completely. "Now, wait just a minute!" He ignored the shrill screaming of a nearby woman, who had her arms wrapped protectively around her child. "What would you have me do? I couldn't just let that man rob Glinda of her valuables! What kind of friend would I be then?"

"We're not friends!" Glinda managed to pry Elphaba's hand off of her face long enough to shout.

"What the hell were you doing outside of the apartment in the first place?!" Sam asked, but then noticed the growing crowd, getting closer, and now many of them sporting cell phone cameras to record the debacle.

"I was going stir crazy! Can you blame me?" Boq began, but Sam cut him off.

"Look we can all yell at each other later. It'll be fun, we'll make a day of it," she said, barely moving, as if the onlookers' sight, as well as their cameras, were all motion-based.

Boq, confused, turns to look at the crowd behind him, accidentally knocking a particularly adventurous young man painfully onto his backside. Shocked, the crowd began to panic, and the screaming mother off to the side somewhere redoubled her efforts. As her screams continued, and her child began to cry, and Boq bent over the young man lying prone on the ground, a full-blown panic ensued.

"Oh, no, we need to get out of here!" Elphaba shouted out to them all, recognizing this kind of behaviour and knowing what is was like to be on the wrong end of it. In an instant, she and Glinda shared a knowing look, and she nodded discretely at Boq, whose eye she had, luckily, managed to catch. Samantha looked to her, but the Ozians were already moving.

"Whoa! What do you think you're doing?" she shrieked uncharacteristically as Boq stepped over and scooped her up, turning to run through the trees and into the nearest dark alley in an impromptu escape route.

While most of the crowd followed the sight of the behemoth kidnapping a still-screaming young woman, enough were still staring at the two, most unfamiliar with the land members of their group. Elphaba watched the last glint of tin disappear and sighed.

"Oh, the hell with it," she mumbled and quickly grasped Glinda around the waist before launching upwards and swooping them both into the sky.

They'd have to fly in an evasive pattern, but Elphaba'd been good at those back in her heyday as the Wicked Witch of the West. They would need to take much more time than usual to get back to the apartment, as close as they still were, but the two groups would have to be careful not to lead anyone back to themselves. Their cover was already blown enough as it was.

As they soared above the heads of the crowd, the two Ozians saw peculiar coloured lights approaching the scene from all roads surrounding the Park.

----------

"_And then it just crushed the gun in its hand, like a tin can!"_

Janet chuckled to herself as she watched the group of teenagers recounting a wild story on the evening News, the field anchor nodding solemnly the entire time.

Fiyero looked up at the sound of her laughter, absentmindedly wiping his latex hands on his bluejeans to get the baby powder off. "What's so funny?"

"Soft news," Janet laughed again, gesturing to the small TV screen in Billy's office. "Some kids are telling a story about a monster terrorizing Oz Park."

"Oz Park?" Fiyero's eyes widened.

"Apparently, it even made off into the night with some poor woman," she nodded, feigning sincerity.

Fiyero lowered the phone's receiver back into its cradle, putting the call list on hold for the moment. "Where is this park?"

"Why?" Janet asked, before comprehension dawned. "Oh. Oz Park. Gotcha. You wanna try and go by there tomorrow? There are no shows on Mondays, so I ought to be able to."

A smile twitched at the corner of Fiyero's mouth and he hefted baby Galinda back up into her arms, suddenly feeling reenergized.

"Well, would you look at that!" Billy exclaimed, coming into the room and catching sight of the News broadcast.

"Oh, wow!" Janet turned, transfixed by the footage. "Wow!"

Fiyero frowned. "What is this? What are we watching?"

"Someone actually got video of the Oz Park Monster carting this poor woman away," Janet laughed, nervously this time. "I guess those kids weren't kidding."

Fiyero squinted at the blurry and pixelated picture, just making out a shiny, lumbering... something, and hearing the tinny sound of a young woman's screams.

"_Truly shocking amateur video there. Chilling."_ By now the field anchor had returned to the screen. _"According to eye-witness accounts, the woman was one of three who, at first, are reported to have appeared to be on friendly terms with the creature, who many who were actually there in the park for the event are claiming looked suspiciously like the Tin Man sculpture which, as most Chicagoans are aware, was vandalized and presumably stolen some two weeks ago." _He halted a moment, pressing one hand against his ear and tilting his head slightly against the wind. _"The other two women, witnesses claim, actually flew away from the scene. Unbelievable, yes, but I've just been told that we've got video of that as well. Let's watch."_

The image on the screen changed yet again, this time showing the Park from a different but still equally grainy angle. The metal monster now more clearly scooped up and hauled away a kicking an screaming young woman, but soon after, the tall brunette woman grabbed and took off, up into the air, a very familiar, very bubbly and bouncy blonde.

Fiyero felt his plastic jaw (Janet had been slowly adding to his figure a bit each day) drop as he watched the scene unfold. He hoped that the tan brunette, whose face not visible on the video, was treating his friend well, but he felt that Janet said it best.

"Well, guys, I think we have a promising new lead!"

* * *

A/N: Le gasp! Can it be? Another update? Remarkable! Amazing! Stupendous!

So, I'm trying to get back into writing this, as I have vowed not to let the story simply fizzle and be forgotten. As such, you'll notice some action in this chapter, as well as the starts of some important development. Anywho, as always, thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed the story, but especially those who review. It's you guys who make me get back to work this thing instead of, say, studying for post-graduate exams.

So, thanks again to readers old and new, and let me know what y'all think. Review!


	27. Chapter 27

Elphaba squinted through the hair whipping about her face, trying to gauge the state of affairs down at street level below. Mysterious blue lights had surrounded the park by now, glittering beautifully yet ominously in the fast-approaching night. Looking closer, the undercover green witch could see that they were merely the adornments of a cadre of those tiktok car things. She banked a sharp turn and winced as the bubbly blonde clutching her arms shrieked in surprise.

"Elphie! Elphaba, don't you dare do that again!" Glinda roared over the howling winds.

The green woman rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Glinda, you don't have to worry; I'm not going to drop you."

The blonde composed herself with a huff. "You'd better not; I'mnot wearing any of my enchanted clothes today." As Elphaba craned her head downward to stare incredulously at her, she continued. "Everything's in the hamper and I haven't gotten around to the laundry yet."

Elphaba smirked as she began to lower them into the alley behind Samantha's apartment building. "You mean you refuse to do the laundry yourself."

"Something like that," Glinda mumbled, shrugging her friend's grip off as soon as her feet touched the pavement.

"You've never even washed your own clothes, have you?"

She wrinkled her nose at the taller witch. "Well, even if I ever had, I'd hardly know how to go about doing it here, now would I?"

"Fair enough," Elphaba shrugged, peering out around a corner to make sure that no one had followed their flight path and was now going to attempt to either mob or ambush them. "Let's get inside and wait for the others."

"I didn't bring my key," Glinda whispered, stifling a moan.

"I've got mine," Elphaba patted her right pocket to confirm. "All we can really do right now is wait and hope that the others were able to make such a clean escape."

"Yes, of course, Elphie. Now let's move it already. I'm getting chilly."

* * *

Sam tried to get her bearings, but that was proving quite difficult as her head bobbed furiously, in sync with the heavy footfalls of a lumbering metal giant. She shut her eyes as he adjusted her body in his arms, willing her dizzy spell to subside and a growing headache to disappear.

"Boq," she let his name out in a moan. "Boq, you need to find somewhere to stop. I'm gonna barf."

The Tin Man grimaced, but showed no signs of slowing. "Try to hold it in, we're almost to your apartment building."

"Can you please slow down, then?" she pleaded. "Your footsteps sound like thunder when you run, for God's sake!"

Boq banked a sharp turn into an alley before stopping briefly, setting Samantha down on her wobbly feet. She had to lean against a distinctly slimy brick wall to keep her balance, and the sensation did nothing to quell the burning taste of bile in her throat.

"Oh, why couldn't I have gone with one of the flyers?" she muttered. "I bet they're already home by now....."

"I'm sorry, but I thought that it'd be best to take the scenic route and lose anyone who might've tried following us," he defended himself hotly as she patted down her pockets and fervently rummaged through her purse.

"Oh, no," she whispered into the quickly chilling night air. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no....." She began removing keys, cosmetics, anything she thought might be in the way of her search, stuffing them into her pockets instead. She paused after putting her wallet in her mouth, for lack of any other alternative. "Shiff," she cursed around the leather.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Boq asked, soft creaking echoing in the dark alley as he turned his head to check their surroundings before moving closer to her.

She spat her wallet back into her purse before pulling the items back out of her over-full pockets to return them to their rightful places as well. "I lost my cell phone." She zipped up her bag and slung it back over her shoulder, staring to pace the narrow alley. "We were chasing the purse-snatcher, I had just dialed 9-1-1....." She trailed off and looked up at him, scowling. "When a giant metal idiot appeared out of nowhere."

"Hey, now, if I hadn't intervened, you wouldn't have that purse right now!" He crossed her arms as best as he could considering his rusty joints.

"I must have dropped it when you carried me off." Sam sighed.

Boq frowned at her. "Do you want to go back for it?"

"Yeah, right. Let's just go home; I'll report it stolen in the morning."

* * *

Boq sat against the wall, arms resting on bent legs, as he watched Elphaba cook breakfast. Glinda lay on the couch, still unwilling to wake up completely, and Sam sat at the counter, head slumped over a cup of coffee.

He sighed softly, not wanting to bring the attention of any of the three irate women on himself. He had wondered if they could watch the morning news, but the three identical looks of malice shot his way had halted his question before he had even finished clearing his throat.

"Alright," Elphaba said with a heavy sigh. "Breakfast is served." She shuffled over to the kitchenette table and began ladling.... something out of a small saucepan.

Sam came over, bringing the small stack of toast that the green woman had made to go with the meal, and wrinkled her nose at yet another one of Elphaba's totally vegan and unbearably _practical_ forays into the culinary arts.

"How long were you on the run?" she asked, pushing a torn-off piecee of bread around the plate, watching it turn a deep brown as it soaked up the liquid from Elphaba's breakfast soup.

Elphaba raised an eyebrow. "That depends on your definition of the term." She took a taste with her spoon and paused, thoughtful. "I lived in a cave in the woods for about a year."

Sam made a noncommital noise in the back of her throat, swallowing the words 'It shows' in favour of swallowing her questionable breakfast. "Glinda, come and eat," she directed attention at the blonde instead.

The normally bubbly girl groaned in response. "I'm too tired to sit up let alone deal with any of Elphie's cooking right now."

The green woman furrowed her brows and looked dangerously close to a pout, but a knock on the door jarred the roommates out of the potentially tense moment.

Sam set her spoon down quietly. "Boq, Elphaba, you guys get in the bedroom and close the door behind you," she began dictating standard door-opening orders as she stood up and unnecessarily crumpled her still unused napkin. She looked back at Elphaba. "Start putting your make-up on in case, well, just in case. Glinda-- ," she began, then started at the unmoving blonde, "stay there and keep the couch from floating away."

A perfectly manicured thumbs-up popped up from the depths of the couch cushions. "Can do," came the slightly surly reply.

Smoothing her hair back behind an ear and wiping the corners of her mouth for any sort of crust or food, she cast one look back to make certain that everything was in order, and made for the door. She cast a quick look into the peephole, but didn't recognize the face that belonged to the person anxiously bouncing on the balls of their feet in the hallway. Sam frowned, but opened the door about half-way anyways.

"Can I help you?" she tried and failed to keep any hostility out of her voice.

The young man's eyes widened. "Uh, you, uh, I have your phone." He held out the object in question, and Sam immediately made a grab for it, checking it over for scratches or other damage.

"Oh, thank you, I thought I'd lost it!" she exclaimed, fishing around for her wallet even though she was still wearing pajama pants. "Here, let me give you a reward or something.... How did you find me from my cell phone?"

"Well, you are the girl from the Oz Park incident, aren't you?"

Sam, who had turned around to face her purse on the end table near the door, slowly looked back up at him. A rustle behind her told her that the statement had brought Glinda to attention as well. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah, you're her!" The man insisted. "You're the girl the monster made off with!"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, pulling a $10 bill out of her wallet and handing it to the excited young man. "Thank you for returning my phone."

The man stared at it, bewildered for a moment. "Hey, how did you escape-- ?" He looked up again just in time to see Sam closing the door in his face. "Hey!"

"Buh-bye!" she called through the door with false perkiness that even impressed Glinda, who by now had gotten off of the couch and had watched the exchange surreptitiously, leaning against the kitchen counter.

Glinda raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips, obviously wanting to appear casual as she slid down the counter to join Ssamantha, close to the door. "Is your phone alright?"

"Looks okay," Sam mumbled. "Batteries probably dead, so we'll know when I plug it in." She did so, using the cord she kept in the living room, and waited for the phone to start up. She rubbed a hand roughly over her eyes as Elphaba and Boq came back into the room, the former's "normalifying make-up" already fully in place.

"Do you think that man's going to be a problem?" Elphaba asked, having heard the exchange.

Sam sighed. "Nah, I don't think so. I mean, who's going to believe him?"

Further conversation was halted by a _tinny_ beep from Sam's cell phone.

"Oh, right, someone was trying to call me when we were chasing that purse-snatcher," Sam explained as she dialed up her voicemail. It took her a moment, but after not being able to hear anything, she glanced back at her phone, confused. "Oh, the earpiece is smashed." So she put the phone on speaker.

" _--at 9:47 PM_," the automated voice began. There was silence then, for a moment, before a frustrated male voice sounded. "_Hello? Hello, is anyone there?_" Another pause. "_Darn it._" And the message ended.

"Must have been a wrong number," Sam mused, but stopped short when she caught sight of Elphaba, and to a lesser extent Glinda, who both looked shocked to have heard that voice. Then, after a moment, a genuine smile lit up Elphaba's face, and Glinda contrarily had composed herself enough to roll her eyes. Sam smirked, confused. "What?"

"It's Fiyero!" the two chorused, the blonde with decidedly less enthusiasm.

"Your boyfriend?" Sam asked, smiling back at Elphaba, who nodded eagerly. "Well, that's great! Hold on, let me call the number back."

"_Welcome to the Oriental Theatre, Ford Centre for the Perfroming Arts. If you know your party's extension, lease enter it now, followed by the pound key. For the Box Office, press 1..._"

"He's at the Oriental Theatre, apparently," Sam informed them.

"Can I talk to him?" Elphaba asked.

"Well, it's not going to go through," she caught the beginnings of panic in the green woman's eyes, "Because this is just an automated message."

Glinda laughed, suddenly. "Isn't that where they're putting on that musical, Sammy? The one you thought that we were a part of?"

"Irony. Awesome."

"Well, why don't we just go down there?" the blonde asked, throwing her hands into the air. Elphaba gave her a warm smile, which she brilliantly returned. "Come on, let's get dressed and we'll see baby Galinda again before you know it!"

"Fiyero, too!" Elphaba gave her roommate a swat across the arm.

"I suppose, if we have to," Glinda muttered as the girls began to get ready for another trip downtown.

* * *

Fiyero found himself frowning up at the statue of that girl, Dorothy, and her dog, towering over him. He had come across his own image first, chuckling at the sight, but now seeing that little girl brought back old memories, and the Scarecrow in him, while not totally able to blame the girl, was still less than thrilled with her actions while in Oz.

He had come to Oz Park hours ago, hoping to scour the area for any clues as to his Elphaba's whereabouts, but the place had already been crawling with Police, which he presumed were this land's equivalent of the Gale Force. There were also television crews, still reporting on the previous night's events, and he kept well withing earshot, but certainly out of frame, just to hear any and all updates on the matter. There were hardly any. He sighed and turned, turning back to the East end of the Park, where Janet was waiting with her car, graciously using her day off (for there were no performances on Mondays) to help him in his search. As he turned, though, he noticed, about a block off from the Park, there was a rather large gathering of Police, reporters, and an alarming number of onlookers just loitering in the area, all partially surrounding a nondescript apartment building. Thinking that they must know something he didn't, he jogged over to the area, peering above heads in an effort to find out what was going on, and if it could have possibly had anything to do with last night.

* * *

The girls left the apartment, each checking to make certain that their essentials were in place before heading out the door, and Samantha making sure that a thoroughly ashamed Boq would stay put this time.

"Just go on ahead," he had muttered, sullenly. "I think I'll watch the news, since that seems to be the closest I'm ever going to get to the outside world."

Elphaba had felt bad for him, her guilt at his condition flaring up again, but Glinda had reminded her that Boq had tried to kill her on more than one occasion, so they were even. It didn't really alleviate pressure on the green witch's conscience.

They stepped out of the stairwell, talking animatedly as Glinda tried to take her mind off of Boq by planting it firmly on Fiyero and their upcoming reunion, none of them noticing the media circus surrounding the building.

Being the first to exit the building, news crews immediately swarmed Samantha, all asking if she really was the woman involved in the newly dubbed Oz Park Incident.

"_Miss! Miss! Are you the woman that the monster made off with?_"

"_How did you escape?_"

"_What did the monster do to you? Where did it take you? Are there more of them?_"

"_Is this all an elaborate hoax?_"

"_Was the monster merely an amazing feat of robotics?_"

"_How are you related to the monster?_"

The reporters were shoving each other and the Police as they tried, and failed, to keep the mob at bay, and the whole mass of people began pushing in on Sam as well. The Ozian women had followed her out soon after, concern for their friend outweighing the instinct to shy away from this mob, and were soon overcome by cameras and microphones themselves.

"_Are you the flying women caught in the amateur video?_"

"_How exactly did you pull that stunt off?_"

"_Are you in cahoots with the monster?_"

"I don't even know what a cahoot is!" Glinda bellowed, shoving an over-aggressive cameraman out of her face. "Sammy, what do we do?"

"_So, your name is Samantha Larsen?_"

"Jesus Christ," Sam muttered before calling back over to the other two. "Just tell them 'no comment!'"

* * *

Fiyero hadn't recognized the first woman, but the second had been startlingly familiar, and, more importantly, the third was-- .

"Glinda!" He began calling out to her, but his voice was drowned out by the swarming mass of anxious people. He waved his arms frantically and tried yelling louder, but it was no use; the girls were completely distracted.

Frustrated, he clenched his fists and turned his eyes to the sky, spotting a mostly bare tree that, he mused, would be very easy to climb. He smirked, then cast his eyes downward, scooping up a few small rocks.

He had a plan.

* * *

Glinda had always loved attention, but this was getting ridiculous. She was furiously batting away microphones thrust into her face and shying away from cameras, while desperately trying to reach her friends, whom she had been separated from as the crowd pulsed and swayed. Her hand frantically reached into the space between two reporters, and she was pleased to see that she had made contact with Elphaba, who had only been a short distance away. Elphaba pulled her friend through the reporters in between themselves, causing Glinda to cry out as her nose was smushed against her face in a decidedly uncomfortable manner.

"Samantha!" Elphaba called out, getting the other girl's attention. "What is this? Shouldn't your Police be doing something?"

Sam shoved her way through to the other two. "They're doing what they can; they're not going to use force on this crowd unless things get really ugly."

"What do you call this?" Glinda gestured wildly, shouting into Sam's face. Suddenly, the blonde yelped. "Ow! Someone just threw a rock at me!"

"They don't stone people here, do they?" Elphaba asked Sam in as hushed a voice as she could manage.

Sam didn't answer, instead glaring into the direction from which the rock had come. She glared at the figure of a man in a tree, waving frantically at them.

"Look at that asshole!" She pointed him out to the others, just as Glinda was met with another pebble to the face. "Like he has nothing better to do that throw rocks at people!"

Elphaba, though, squinted at him, as if there was something familiar or important about him. "Why would he just throw pebbles, though?"

"To be a douchebag!" Glinda hollered at him, smiling ever so slightly at the smirk that Sam usually wore when Glinda properly used a new term.

"No, Glinda," Elphaba countered. "I think he's calling your name!"

"What?" she whipped her head around to squint at him again. "Oh, sweet Oz, Elphie, he is! I think that's Fiyero!" She waved an arm at him, unnecessarily. "Fiyero! Fiyero, is that you?" The man nodded furiously, a grin spreading across his face. "I was right, he _is_ a douchebag!"

Elphaba ignored her friend and simply stared at the man claiming to be Fiyero, trying to take him in as the crowd continued to yell at her and shove her around, all clamouring for her attention. The man in the tree smiled warmly at her and bit his lip.

Elphaba smiled.

"Glinda, let's get out of here," she mumbled, her face briefly resembling that of the Wicked Witch of the West on a good day.

Glinda nodded, suddenly all business, and wrapped her arms around Samantha's waist. Before Sam could protest, the Ozians had taken off into the air, but an overzealous reporter had been reaching out at that exact moment, and grabbed onto Elphaba's shirt, ripping it off of her and leaving her clad only in her pants and bra, exposing the green skin underneath the neckline and long sleeves.

* * *

A/N: Alright, and so the story progresses just that bit more! As you all may have noticed, I am really trying to update more frequently and finally finish this story, despite the Rel World's efforts to stop me. So, if you all can spare the time, please drop me a review. They're very encouraging and they really do make me write more, as I see how many people are really enjoying this story, and so feel the need to finish that next chapter all the sooner for them. Thanks for reading!


	28. Chapter 28

Elphaba ran a peach-painted hand over Fiyero's face, a small smile playing at her lips and wonder showing openly in her eyes. She marveled at his handsome visage, different from his natural look but still so achingly familiar, relishing in the easy smile that she knew he wore now because he felt more comfortable in his "skin," although certainly still stuffed with straw.

"You're beautiful," she murmured, blushing under her make-up as his smile widened into a remarkably human grin. He lent down to brush his lips against hers but she pulled away, correcting herself. "You always were."

He laughed, quirking an eyebrow. "You do have to admit, though," he winked at her, "this is pretty amazing."

She didn't argue, he noticed.

A soft cough sounded from the hallway, as Billy stood in the doorway, looking slightly anxious.

"You guys might want to see this," the security guard informed them, looking back in the direction of his office and glad that the theatre was all but abandoned at this time of day, and on a Monday. "It's all over the News- ."

"We'll be there in a clock tick, Billy, thanks," Fiyero told him, eyes still locked with the love of his life. He barely registered Bill's deep, throaty chuckle as the older man discreetly excuse himself, the straw man moving in and dipping his head to deliver a soft kiss. Elphaba tilted her head slightly to avoid his nose, lips parting and body moving closer as well.

Baby Galinda did not like the closing in of her parents on either side and wailed, protesting loudly and making the couple spring apart after only another chaste peck on the lips. The pair laughed lightly, each agreeably moving to tickle or otherwise entertain the now fussy baby.

The small family relished in their reunion, having spent so many nights apart in this strange land. The lovers moved in again, turning their bodies so as not to disturb the baby as the kiss began more passionate.

Elphaba reached a hand into his shirt on impulse, grabbing a fistful of straw and pulling away, laughing lightly.

"You're still so soft," she told him, bursting into laughing all the more as she noticed his now very pink lips, realizing that her make-up must have worn off on him. "It's a good shade on you," she teased.

He looked at her mouth with a crooked grin as she spoke, taking in the sight of green skin under smeared foundation. "It's good to see that you're still the same on the inside, too," he drawled, slipping an arm around to waist to pull her in close yet again.

"Oh, barf."

Naturally, the moment had to end as their blonde third-wheel stepped into the doorway.

Elphaba shot Fiyero an apologetic smile as she turned to face her friend, who was determinedly not looking at them, instead focusing on detaching a hissing ball of fur from her forearm. Fiyero rolled his new glass eyes and hefted Galinda up into a higher and firmer hug.

"Oh, good," Elphaba beamed, gently grasping the shivering cat and stroking her standing fur down, soothingly. "You got Streaky." She held the housecat up to eye level and examined it thoroughly. "Are you alright?"

"You had better be talking to me," the blonde huffed, grimacing at the cat hair covering her new blouse. She ignored Elphaba's enigmatic smile and complete lack of reassurance as the green witch fawned over the little orange monster. "And, I suppose that I'm fine, if you care."

Elphaba ignored her friend's dramatics and began scratching Streaky behind the ears, smiling as the rumble of the cat's purr vibrated against her arms. A thought occurred, and she immediately sobered. "Any sign of Boq?"

"Actually, I just saw him a little while ago," the petite woman began. "He'd managed to find the theatre on his own and was waiting in the alley when I left through the stage door. I told him that I had to go back for the furball," she jerked a thumb at the cat, which hissed back before nuzzling deeper into Elphaba's arms, "and that I'd help him get inside when it was safe. I told him to wait in a dumpster, though, just in case anyone came driving through the alley and spotted him."

"So, he's right outside of the door?" Elphaba asked.

"Oh, well, how should I know?" Glinda shrugged, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms. "That was hours ago."

Fiyero suppressed a chuckle at his lover's glare. "Wait, you mean you saw him _before_ you left?"

Glinda made no move that she'd heard him, suddenly finding her nails fascinating. Well, moreso at this moment than usual.

"He's been in a slimy, putrid, refuse bin for over two hours?" Elphaba asked, incredulously.

Glinda glanced at the clock on the wall. "Just about."

Elphaba stared at her for a long moment before waving an arm in a wide arc. "And you were going to tell him it's safe to come inside... when?"

Glinda stared at her blankly.

"Glinda!"

"Well, to be honest, I hadn't really planned on it," Glinda waved a nonchalant hand at her roommate. "I mean, that tin monstrosity has ruined just about everything since we cut him down from his pedestal."

"Glinda!" Elphaba repeated, aghast.

"Honestly, Elphie, we're better off without him." Glinda turned away from her, but Elphaba could still hear her muttered, "Frankly, I think we ought to consider ditching the Scarecrow, too, but fat chance of that."

"Fat chance indeed," Elphaba agreed, shaking her head slightly at Fiyero's questioning look. "Don't worry about it."

Fiyero smiled. "I never worry." He moved closer to Elphaba and gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

Elphaba laughed lightly.

Glinda blushed, barely.

"Well, why don't you two go on and see what Billy wanted to show us?" he began, passing baby Galinda into her namesake's arms, smiling as Glinda immediately brightened. "And I'll go see if I can't help Boq squeeze through that door."

Elphaba followed Fiyero out of the door, Galinda coming up behind her with a giggling Galinda in her arms. Fiyero made a left, heading for the theatre's back door, and the two women kept along the hallway, heading for Billy's office, the space already filled with their very cramped non-Ozian acquaintances, all eyes glued to the small television in the corner.

"_Police have been investigating the home of Samantha Larsen, now positively identified as the woman in the amateur video taken of the 'Oz Park Incident.' Authorities have found evidence that suggests Ms. Larsen's involvement, otherwise, including an unusually large number of Wizard-of-Oz-related paraphernalia, including copies of the books, films, music, and collectibles. Receipts for many of these items were also found in the woman's garbage, and her computer's web browser history has cached several websites regarding the series of books, but also Wicked: the Musical, and even articles documenting author L. Frank Baum and the history of Oz Park itself."_

"Okay, great, now I look like an obsessed fan," Elphaba heard Sam mutter from the other side of the room, where she had been sitting and conversing with Janet, no doubt excited at the prospect of associating with someone from her own world with whom she could share her secret.

Glinda furrowed her brow. "Are you going to get in trouble for all of this?"

"That depends on what they think my part was," Sam waved a dismissive hand, although her resigned expression betrayed her nerves. "Which, apparently, is somewhere between victim and conspirator."

Janet laughed. "I wonder how they're going to think of all of this."

"Right?" Sam agreed with a laugh.

Glinda and Elphaba turned away from the other two women and resumed watching the News broadcast.

"_A statement from the woman's Landlord, saying that Ms. Larsen was the sole tenant of the unit, contradicts the Police's findings, which indicate that several women inhabited the space, and possibly had frequent visits by a male, if said male has not actually been staying with her as well. Could these extra 'mystery tenants' be the other two young women seen exiting the building with her this morning? Landlady Bertha Wilkins has also stated that she could not recognize the two unidentified women as tenants of hers. And now, with us today we have several experts here to comment on the credibility of both the footage of the 'Oz Park Incident' and this morning's astonishing footage of what appears to have been two of these women actually flying above the heads of representatives of almost every major News outlet in the City, as well as their cameras."_

"Hey, we're famous, guys," came another one of Samantha's exasperatedly sarcastic comments from the other end of the small room, but the green woman ignored it as Fiyero came back into the room and snaked an arm around her waist. She unconsciously moved in closer to him, leaning her head on his shoulder and relishing in his warmth without ever even looking up at him.

She also didn't notice Glinda's small frown from over the top of her daughter's head.

The entrance of Boq into the already heavily cramped room caused the blonde to groan loudly.

"Mr. Billy, you're going to need a bigger office than this, if we're going to be cramming this dope inside!" she exclaimed to the old security guard, although not unkindly.

He frowned, pensive. "Well, I don't know about me getting a bigger office any time soon."

"Sorry, Boq," Glinda said, her enthusiasm completely over-shadowing any attempt at appearing sympathetic, "You heard the man. Out!"

The Tin Man's face fell, and he looked unsure as to where to go, until Sam, seated as she was closest to the door, placed a hand on his arms and pulling him inside.

"Have a heart," she said softly towards Glinda. "Where else is he going to go?"

"Back in the dumpster?" the blonde supplied with a careless shrug.

"Is this desk sturdy?" Sam asked Billy as she helped Boq to settle into a seat atop it, at least until Glinda's statement registered. "He was in a dumpster?" She asked, failing to suppress a laugh and her slightly gleeful tone.

As Glinda was about to retort, when the television suddenly changed colours, bringing their attention back to it just in time to see a clip of Elphaba and Glinda launching into the air, Glinda holding a screaming Samantha, and Elphaba having her top ripped off, revealing flawless green skin and a lithe frame underneath.

Elphaba fought a blush, her cheeks turning a dark, muddled purple, visible as she had taken a cloth from Janet to remove her make-up only moments before (as the lack of make-up around her mouth both gave her a very odd look and gave others entirely too accurate an idea of what she had been doing in the other room with Fiyero). Fiyero brought his other arm around her and pulled her back tightly against his chest.

"That's a great look for you, Elphaba," he whispered into her ear, causing her to slap his arm, and more blood to rush to her face. "They're been playing that clip all day; they can't get enough of you either."

Elphaba focused on the screen, biting back an anguished cry at the notion of everyone in the City having seen her floating above their television cameras, topless no less.

"I'm kind of bummed that I didn't get to see him as the actual Scarcrow," she heard Sam remark. "Good job, by the way."

"Elphaba looks natural in your make-up, so you're not bad yourself," she could hear the smile in Janet's response. "Oh, don't worry, I took plenty of pictures of the progress."

Elphaba decided not to listen to that, either. Instead she stared at the screen, her mind mulling over the conversation of a round-table panel of so-called experts.

"_Impossible. Robotics haven't come that far..."_

"_No, you an clearly see the smudges from the borders of application; the normal skin tone is make-up, the green skin underneath appears to be the natural skin tone, however wholly unnatural it is..."_

"_Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by author L. Frank Baum, who lived none too far from the site of this amazing event in the late 1890s..."_

"_A spokesperson for the Musical has vehemently denied any involvement, stating that this is not a publicity stunt but rather an entirely unrelated matter..."_

She stole a look over at Glinda, not surprised to see her friend matching her stare, even as she absentmindedly tickled baby Galinda, still squirming and giggling on her namesake's lap.

"So much for not being known as the Flying Green Woman," the blonde told her with an apologetic smile.

"_This just in, Police have released images of the interiour of the apartment, where several large gouges in the floor, as well as what look to be recently replaced windows and countertop, further indicate that there may have been dubious goings-on therein."_

"'Dubious goings-on?'" Samantha echoed, incredulous.

"_A large bag of tools near the door, also holding what appear to be random bits of scrap metal, seem to indicate that Ms. Larsen might have actually had something to do with the desecration of the Tin Man statue, some time ago. The two women, some believe, may have been her accomplices in the act of vandalism."_

Glinda pursed her lips. "Well that's kind of true."

"Extenuating circumstances," Elphaba murmured with a fleeting look at Boq, sitting morosely on the desk behind her.

"_Samantha Larsen, we have found, originally hails from the Northwest Suburbs, and has been living alone in the city for three years, attending nearby DePaul University. More information is unavailable at this time, as Ms. Larsen's parents were unavailable for comment."_

"Oh, my God, my parents!" Samantha exclaimed. "What must my mother be thinking? Shit!" She leapt to her feet and moved to the door. "Excuse me, I'll be right back!"

After their benefactor-turned-fugitive fled the room, Janet crossed the room to turn down the volume on the television. She gingerly stepped over Streaky, who had at some point dislodged himself from Elphaba's grasp, choosing instead to curl up on top of a vent located just under the table, near the wall.

"Okay, so I live with my boyfriend," she began, ignoring the shocked look of her uncle as that bit of new sunk in, "so I highly doubt that I could help you guys out with lodging. And," she began walking a small circle, hands gesturing widely, "I doubt that Samantha's got enough money to hole up in a hotel with all of you." Her gaze lingered on Boq, who's chin was resting resignedly on his hand, but she shook it off. "I don't know what to suggest for you guys."

Glinda gingerly took a step forward as Janet went to lean against a wall, arms crossed and deep in thought.

"Well," the blonde began, "I think that I might have something that could help." She rifled in the borrowed messenger bag at her side. "Being the only one here inconspicuous enough and familiar enough with the apartment to venture out and get the cat and a change of clothes," she glanced at Elphaba with a small grin, "and how often have I not been the centre of attention?"

Elphaba laughed.

Glinda gave a false huff and continued, having finally found what she had been rifling for. "Frankly, I cannot believe that no one mentioned to pick this up."

Elphaba's eyes widened as they fixed on the cover of "the Wonderful Wizard of Oz" from Sam's apartment. "Oh, Oz, I was just so focused on getting Streaky out of there..."

"Honestly, Elphie, you do get carried away..."

Elphaba ignored her and ran her hands over the cover, delicately, as Fiyero watched on, over her shoulder.

"What is it?" he asked, watching as she opened it, flipping over the image of himself, Boq, the Lion and that Dorothy child.

She almost smiled fondly. "A copy of the Grimmerie."

"The Grimmerie?" he exclaimed, pulling away from her practically for the first time since their reunion. "Wait, what do you mean _a copy_- ?"

"Oh, we're not going to explain this whole thing over again, are we?" Glinda asked, her cheeks turning a bit pink.

"Later," Elphaba whispered to him, giving him a quick peck on the lips and smiling wider at her own action. "Right now we need a plan."

"Since when do you operate on a plan?" he teased.

Glinda rolled her eyes, but Janet nudged her, telling her, "he's been pretty much cooped up in here the whole time, so... "

Elphaba went on ahead and began flipping through the pages, brow furrowed, looking for something but perhaps not anything as-yet specific. "The layout is completely different."

"Yours was probably a different printing," Janet supplied.

Elphaba didn't respond, instead, slamming the cover shut. "I need to really sit down and spend some time studying "

"Not right now, you don't," Glinda plucked the book from Elphaba's hands, ignoring a muted moan of protest from her friend. "Right now," she spoke the words with extra force, "what we need to do is plan, and I'm sure that this can help us." She slapped the book against one palm, causing Elphaba to flinch. "What we need to do is figure out how this can help us."

Elphaba's eyes narrowed. "And how do you propose we figure it out without intense study?"

"Well, who is the one person we know with any familiarity with the Grimmerie?"

Elphaba groaned.

Glinda swallowed the taste of bile as she spoke. "Yes.

"We've got to go and ask Madame Morrible for help."

* * *

A/N: Wow. No real scene changes during this whole monster. Huhn. Well, another chapter, kind of filler-y, but including the long-awaited reunion of our favourite lovebirds, and the story has gone further along on its sudden turn.

Meanwhile, today is my birthday, and I have this as my gift to you all. Want to return the sentiment?

Review!


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